Captain Francis Austen had done good service on board and had well earned his promotion; in William James’s _Naval History of Great Britain_, his name is mentioned with praise. On the 20th March, 1800, in the evening, while the _Mermaid_, a twelve-pounder thirty-two gun frigate, under Captain R. D. Oliver, and the ship sloop _Petrel_, under Captain Francis William Austen, were cruising together in the Bay of Marseilles, the _Petrel_, which was nearer the coast than the _Mermaid_, came into action with three armed vessels; two escaped by running on shore, but the third, the _Ligurienne_ of “fourteen long six pounders two thirty-six pounder carronades all brass” and with one hundred and four men on board to the _Petrel’s_ eighty-nine,—for the first lieutenant and some of the crew were absent on prizes,—began to fight. They kept up a running fight of an hour and an half’s duration, within two hundred and fifty yards, and sometimes half that distance. Then the _Ligurienne_ struck her colours, her commander being shot. The _Petrel_ was at that time only six miles from Marseilles. No one was hurt on the _Petrel_, though four of her twelve pounder carronades were upset, and the sails riddled with shot holes. The _Mermaid_ apparently stood in the offing, giving moral support throughout. The _Ligurienne_ was a fine vessel, only about two years old, and her capture must have meant good prize-money into the pockets of the captain and crew of the _Petrel_. After describing this action, Mr. James continues— “Before quitting Captain Austen we shall relate another instance of his good conduct; and in which, without coming to actual blows, he performed an important and not wholly imperilous service.” On the thirteenth of August, the _Petrel_ being then attached to Sir Sydney Smith’s squadron on the coast of Egypt, he was the means of burning a Turkish ship so as to prevent the French from stealing her guns, and for this service the Captain Pacha presented him with a handsome sabre and rich pelisse. Though his service seems to have landed the Turkish vessel “out of the frying-pan into the fire.” Charles Austen had seen active service when only a lad of fifteen, and both brothers frequently took part in the small actions which were continually occurring on the seas.