For this action Pellew was knighted ten days afterwards. The Portsmouth correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, writing in July, 1793, of this engagement, says that 'the commencement of the action between the _Nymphe_ and _Cleopatra_ was the most notable and awful that the naval history of the world ever recorded. The French captain ordered his ship to be manned, and, coming forward on the gangway, pulled off his hat, and called out, "Vive la nation!" when the ship's company gave three cheers. Captain Pellew, in like manner, ordered his men from quarters to the shrouds, and gave three cheers to "Long live King George the Third!" and his putting on his hat again was the signal for action, one of the most desperate ever fought.' The captain of the _Cleopatra_, Citoyen Mullon, was buried in Portsmouth churchyard. In January, 1794, he joined the _Arethusa_, which formed one of the cruising frigates of the Western Squadron, a branch of the service which our hero may be said to have originated. In the engagement between the small French and English squadrons on 23rd April, 1794, off the Isle of Bass, he captured the _Pomone_, a larger vessel than his own, and carried her into Portsmouth harbour, on which occasion Pellew received the warmest thanks of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and of Earl Howe. Another French squadron was, in the following August, driven ashore near Brest, by Pellew and his brave companions in arms; and the Channel was thus practically cleared of the enemy's cruisers for a while. But the following October saw the Frenchmen once more on the move; and it was not until after a smart engagement off Ushant between the _Artois_ and the large French frigate _Révolutionnaire_, on which occasion Pellew commanded the squadron, that the French navy was completely cowed. On the 2nd January, 1795, private intelligence having reached Sir Edward that the enemy's fleet, consisting of thirty-five sail of the line, thirteen frigates, and sixteen smaller vessels, had put to sea from Brest, he set forth from Falmouth with his little squadron of five ships to reconnoitre; but no engagement resulted from this expedition. He now joined the _Indefatigable_, which he successfully insisted upon having cut down and rigged after his own method. She sailed from Falmouth on 2nd March; and shortly after, the squadron of which she formed part captured fifteen out of a convoy of twenty-five vessels near the Penmarcks rocks.