The scene now shifts to Plymouth Sound, where he performed, on 26th January, 1796, one of the most heroic acts that it has ever fallen to the lot of man to accomplish. He was in evening dress, and on his way to a dinner-party, when he heard that a large ship, an East Indiaman, the _Dutton_, was on the rocks under the citadel, and that no one was able to go to her assistance; but, with his usual hardihood, he swam out to her through the surf, and thus became the means of saving the lives of between 500 and 600 of his fellow-creatures. This service he performed at the imminent risk of his own life, and when, as we have seen, no other witness of the wild scene had the courage to make the attempt. For his gallant conduct on this memorable occasion he was created a baronet, as Sir Edward Pellew, of Treverry. The Corporation of Plymouth voted him the freedom of their town, and the merchants of Liverpool presented him with a service of plate. The civic wreath and the stranded ship which appear as honourable augmentations on his coat-of-arms were derived from this event. On the 20th April following, our sailor was again at sea, and the action was fought between the _Indefatigable_ and the _Virginie_, which ended--as usual with Pellew--in victory. 'He takes _everything_!' said the brave French Captain Bergeret, weeping bitterly as he surrendered his sword to his opponent. November, 1798, witnessed the well-known futile descent of the French upon Ireland. In the ineffectual steps taken by the British fleet to prevent it, Pellew had no share beyond watching Brest, and reporting progress. But in January, 1799, he fell in with the _Droits de l'Homme_, and, in the midst of a furious gale, and after an engagement of eleven hours (during the latter part of which the _Indefatigable_ was assisted by the _Amazon_, Captain Reynolds),[125] the French ship was driven on shore in the Bay of Audierne. The _Amazon_ was also wrecked, and the _Indefatigable_ herself had a narrow escape. The capture of a few privateers is all we now have to chronicle until we hear of Sir Edward making the daring proposal of attacking with a few frigates the whole of the French fleet then in harbour at Brest; but, whether from timidity on the part of the Admiralty, or, as was suggested, from the jealousy of Pellew's superior officer, Lord Bridport, the offer was declined. The _Impetueux_, one of his captures from the French, was his next ship; and in her, at Bantry Bay, he promptly quelled a mutiny, which, but for his courage and sagacity, would probably have extended to other ships, whose disaffected crews, demoralized by the reports of the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, were, it is said, only waiting a successful result of the rising on board Sir Edward's ship. The _Impetueux_ soon after joined Earl St. Vincent in the Mediterranean, and formed part of the force which pursued the combined fleets from the Mediterranean to Brest.