When the circumstances of the action became known, the public enthusiasm rose to a height which seems in the retrospect a little overstrained, but which may certainly be accepted as a proof of the high degree of importance attached to the preservation of the mails. The news, moreover, reached England at a time when no great naval engagement had taken place, and when the success of several single ship actions had whetted the public appetite for glory without satisfying it. There was, too, something in the circumstances which touched the imagination; for it was not every day, even in the years of our greatest sea-fights, that a ship was brought out of action by her boatswain. It was seriously proposed to strike a medal in Pasco’s honour. The Jamaica House of Representatives voted five hundred guineas to be distributed among the crew. The Society for Encouraging the Capture of French Privateers—it was a Committee of Lloyds—granted a substantial sum for the same purpose, in addition to a gold boatswain’s call which they presented to Pasco, who was also rewarded by the Postmaster General with another similar call; while “smart money” and pensions were granted on the highest scale consistent with the regulations. Even in distributing these rewards the Postmaster General found an opportunity for asserting their new principle. The Secretary’s letter to the agent at Falmouth ran as follows: “But Mr. Pender must let it be thoroughly understood amongst the officers and crews that these rewards are given only in consequence of the particular circumstances attending this glorious action, in which the “Antelope” was first chased from nine o’clock A.M. December 1st to December 2nd, when she was obliged to defend herself against an attack, but did not first attack an enemy. For the Postmaster General by no means intend to depart from the principle which they have been ordered to adopt, of considering it to be the duty of the Packets to outsail the enemy whenever they can, and by no means to fight when it can possibly be avoided.” In such terms the Secretary pointed his moral, perhaps a little incautiously. How his instructions were interpreted will appear hereafter.