Perhaps the most brilliant cutting-out in British records is the carrying of the _Chevrette_ by the boats of three British frigates in Cameret Bay in 1801. A previous and mismanaged attempt had put the _Chevrette_ on its guard; it ran a mile and a half farther up the bay, moored itself under some heavy batteries, took on board a powerful detachment of infantry, bringing its number of men up to 339, and then hoisted in defiance a large French ensign over the British flag. Some temporary redoubts were thrown up on the points of land commanding the _Chevrette_, and a heavily armed gunboat was moored at the entrance of the bay as a guard-boat. After all these preparations the _Chevrette's_ men felt both safe and jubilant; but the sight of that French flag flying over the British ensign was a challenge not to be refused, and at half-past nine that night the boats of the three frigates--the _Doris_, the _Uranie_, and the _Beaulieu_--fifteen in all, carrying 280 officers and men, were in the water and pulling off to attack the _Chevrette_. Lieutenant Losack, in command, with his own and five other boats, suddenly swung off in the gloom in chase of what he supposed to be the look-out boat of the enemy, ordering the other nine boats to lie on their oars till he returned. But time stole on; he failed to return; and Lieutenant Maxwell, the next in command, reflecting that the night was going, and the boats had six miles to pull, determined to carry out the expedition, though he had only nine boats and less than 180 men, instead of fifteen boats and 280 men. He summoned his little squadron in the darkness about him, and gave exact instructions. As the boats dashed up, one was to cut the _Chevrette's_ cables; when they boarded, the smartest topmen, named man by man, were to fight their way aloft and cut loose the _Chevrette's_ sails; one of the finest sailors in the boats, Wallis, the quartermaster of the _Beaulieu_, was to take charge of the _Chevrette's_ helm. Thus at one and the same instant the _Chevrette_ was to be boarded, cut loose, its sails dropped, and its head swung round towards the harbour mouth.