[Illustration: CAPTURE OF ADMIRAL NELSON’S DESPATCHES.] Captain Le Joille, the commander of the French ship, was not, if we may believe the English accounts, a very good specimen of a French naval officer, even of those peculiar times, when rudeness was considered the best proof of true republicanism. Captain Thompson and his officers were allowed to be plundered, as soon as they arrived on board the Généreux, of every article they possessed, hardly leaving the clothes which they wore. In vain they expostulated with the French Captain, reminding him of the very different treatment experienced by the French officers taken prisoners at the battle of the Nile. With great _nonchalance_ he answered, “I am sorry, but to tell the truth, our fellows are great hands at pillage.” Captain Berry, the bearer of dispatches, who was a passenger in the Leander, was plundered of a pair of pistols which he valued. The man who had taken them was produced, when the French Captain himself took the pistols, telling Berry that he would give him a pair of French pistols when he was released, which he never did. This incident is related by Sir Edward Berry himself, in a letter. In fact, the French behaved very much like Barbary corsairs, and even took the instruments of the surgeon of the Leander, before he had performed the necessary operations. Captain Thompson’s severe wounds nearly proved fatal, from their preventing the surgeon from attending to them. When the Leander arrived at Corfu, where she was taken, the French there treated the English very badly, and some of them nearly perished of privation. Had Captain Thompson fallen into the hands of Captain Bergeret, or many other French officers who could be named, his obstinate and noble defence would have secured him the respect and esteem of his captors. Bergeret was of a very different type of French officer. He was, during this war, a prisoner in England, and was given his parole, to go to France, and endeavor to effect an exchange between himself and the celebrated Sir Sidney Smith, then a prisoner in Paris. Failing in his object, he promptly returned to his imprisonment in England. Sir Sidney had, in the meantime, made his escape; and the British government, with a due sense of Bergeret’s conduct, restored his liberty, without any restrictions. It is a pity that such a man as Le Joille should have been in command of one of the finest 74s in the French navy. When Captain Thompson’s wounds healed, and he at length reached his native country, he received not only an honorable acquittal from the court held upon the loss of his ship, but also the honor of knighthood, for the defence which he had made against so superior a force. Another striking incident connected with the battle of the Nile, and we shall have done with that action.