The conduct of Bainbridge, throughout this rude initiation into the public service, was approved by the government, and he was immediately promoted to the rank of master commandant, and given the Norfolk 18, the brig he had saved from capture by his address. In this vessel he joined the squadron under Com. Truxtun, who was cruising in the vicinity of St. Kitts. While on that station, the Norfolk fell in with and chased a heavy three-masted schooner, of which she was on the point of getting alongside, when both topmasts were lost by carrying sail, and the enemy escaped. The brig went into St. Kitts to repair damages, and here she collected a convoy of more than a hundred sail, bound home. Bainbridge performed a neat and delicate evolution, while in charge of this large trust. The convoy fell in with an enemy’s frigate, when a signal was thrown out for the vessels to disperse. The Norfolk occupied the frigate, and induced her to chase, taking care to lead her off from the merchantmen. That night the brig gave her enemy the slip, and made sail on her course, overtaking and collecting the whole fleet the following day. It is said not a single vessel, out of one hundred and nineteen sail, failed of the rendezvous! It was August, 1799, before the Norfolk returned to New York. Here Bainbridge found that no less than five lieutenants had been made captains, passing the grades of commanders and lieutenants commandant altogether. This irregularity could only have occurred in an infant service, though it was of material importance to a young officer in after life. Among the gentlemen thus promoted, were Capts. Rodgers, and Barron, two names that, for a long time, alone stood between Bainbridge and the head of the service. Still, it is by no means certain that injustice was done, such circumstances frequently occurring in so young a service, to repair an original wrong. At all events, no slight was intended to Bainbridge, or any other officer who was passed; though the former ever maintained that he had not his proper rank in the navy. After refitting the Norfolk, Bainbridge returned to the West Indies, where he was put under the orders of Capt. Christopher R. Perry, the father of the celebrated Commodore Oliver H. Perry, who sent him to cruise off Cape François. The brig changed her cruising ground, under different orders, no opportunity occurring for meeting an enemy of equal force. Indeed, it was highly creditable to the maritime enterprise of the French that they appeared at all in those seas, which were swarming with English and American cruisers; this country alone seldom employing fewer than thirty sail in the West Indies, that year; toward the close of the season it had near, if not quite forty, including those who were passing between the islands and the home coast.