lives of the soldiers, and prevented the conspirators from carrying off the schooner, an act which, it is said, they premeditated. The two unhappy wretches who threw away their lives in this affair are represented by the mate of the ‘Windsor Castle’ to have been habitually turbulent and mutinous.... The verdict of the jury of inquest entirely acquitted the two soldiers of any blame in taking their lives.” It may be added that Captain Sutton gave a very different character to the two sailors who perished in this bold attempt to escape, and that the Postmaster General, regarding their conduct as natural and praiseworthy, pensioned their relatives as if the men had been killed in action. * * * * * With this fight the battle-roll of the Post-Office Service ends. A few weeks later the guns were laid away in store, the pikes and cutlasses were sold. The crews were reduced to the numbers of a peace establishment, and the gunners were idle. The Packets came and went unnoticed by the Privateers. The fighting days were over, and from then until now Falmouth has never looked upon the once familiar sight of a vessel creeping in beneath Pendennis Castle with her sides shattered by round shot. It was a momentous change; the opening of a long peace after more than a century of almost ceaseless warfare. The first result at Falmouth was curious enough. A civil department had controlled the Packets as long as there was fighting to be done; when there was no longer any, a fighting department took them over. The war had not been at an end more than three years when the Admiralty claimed the Packet Service as a training ground for seamen, and a means of providing for half-pay officers, whose applications for employment were in the highest degree embarrassing. The Post-Office protested, and fought to retain the service which had become distinguished under its control, but all in vain. By degrees the Admiralty expelled the ancient governors of the Packets, changed the regulations, altered the type of ship, and in the end Falmouth knew the Postal officers no more. The details of these changes, if of any public interest, lie outside the scope of this work, which has aimed only at describing the Packet Service in its prime.