Captain Dyneley maintained a most obstinate resistance, though on this occasion the safety of his capital was not in question, since the Post-Office was pledged to pay for Packets captured while employed on their own service. Time after time the French were driven back to their own ship, unable to gain the slightest advantage. For no less than three hours the two ships remained locked together fighting incessantly, and it is impossible to say how the action would have ended had not Captain Dyneley unhappily fallen in one of the boarding attacks. His mate and three seamen were already slain. Two others were dangerously wounded, and the crew, dispirited by the loss of their commander, and exhausted by their long and desperate resistance, hauled the colours down and surrendered. So ended, bravely and honourably, the career of Captain Bert Dyneley. The naval history of this country tells of many exploits performed upon a grander scale than his and followed by consequences of more importance. But if the quality of the achievements be considered rather than the numbers of the contending forces, Captain Dyneley, who cheerfully risked his property as well as his life in a national service entirely out of his line of duty, and who a few months later laid down that life in defending his trust with an obstinacy which his chiefs did not expect and had not equipped him for, deserves a better fate than to be entirely forgotten. CHAPTER VIII. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM. Relieved as they were by recent events from all apprehension about the conduct of the Falmouth Packets, my Lords the Postmaster General yet found themselves involved in anxieties and difficulties, which were daily growing more acute. It was the growth of the Continental System, the blockade of all intercourse with the ports of Europe which give rise to these difficulties; and to follow plainly the efforts made to cope with this new situation of affairs, it will be necessary to revert once more to the outbreak of hostilities in 1803. The inhuman decree issued by Napoleon at the commencement of the war, ordering the seizure and detention of all English subjects between the ages of 18 and 60 who, for whatever reason, were present on territory subject to French control at the moment when war was declared, has no defenders now. That barbarous seizure of peaceful travellers, both men and women, of merchants following their lawful callings, and of Government servants, who had not yet been ordered to quit their posts, stands universally condemned as the act of a savage rather than of a civilized enemy. “It was an act,” says M. de Bourrienne, “which no consideration can justify”; and in face of this emphatic condemnation of Napoleon’s private Secretary, it might not have been necessary to refer to the matter had not the decree struck the Packet Service with peculiar force.