At half-past six they were within gunshot, and the Frenchmen opened fire; but the _Fame_ swept on in silence until she was close to the largest ship; then they blazed away, and in three quarters of an hour she surrendered. Without a moment's delay Moor tackled the next in size, which also shortly succumbed. Putting an officer and seven men on board, with orders to look after _both_ ships--what glorious confidence in his men!--he went after the others, which were now endeavouring to escape; only one succeeded, however, though one would have imagined that, by scattering widely, they might have saved another. These two fugitives made no further resistance, and Captain Moor thus got four ships, to wit--_Deux Frères_, 14 guns, 50 men; _Univers_, 12 guns, 40 men; _Zephyr_ (formerly a British sloop-of-war, according to Beatson's "Memoirs"), 10 guns, 32 men; and _Nancy_, 4 guns, 18 men--a total of 40 guns and 140 men, against his 26 guns and 108 men. The Frenchmen certainly ought to have made it hotter for him; but probably their crews were not trained, and Moor evidently had his men well in hand, just as Walker had. He took his prizes into Algiers, where he landed the prisoners, who gave such a good account of the kind and generous treatment they had received from their captors that the French Consul-General at Algiers wrote a very handsome letter to Moor, expressing in the strongest terms his appreciation of his conduct. This Edward Moor was evidently one of those commanders like Walker and Wright; a gentleman by birth and instinct, combining the highest courage with refinement of mind and humanity; he would have been well employed in the Royal Navy. CAPTAIN JAMES BORROWDALE, OF THE "ELLEN" Earlier in this same year, 1780, a Bristol ship made a very brilliant capture. This was the _Ellen_, an armed merchantman, provided with a letter of marque. She carried 18 six-pounders and a crew of 64, half of them boys and landsmen on their first voyage. She was commanded by James Borrowdale, a careful man, who, while fully aware that he was expected to make as good a passage as possible, and refrain from engaging in combat unless it was forced upon him, took some pains to ensure that, in such event, the foe should not have a walk-over. He had as passenger one Captain Blundell, of the 79th--Liverpool--Regiment, going out to join his regiment in Jamaica; and this gentleman, in order, no doubt, to beguile the tedium of the voyage, undertook to train sixteen of the crew to act as marines--hoping, probably, for an opportunity of proving their metal; and he was not disappointed. A month out, on April 16th, a ship was sighted to windward, apparently of much the same size and force as the _Ellen_. Captain Borrowdale, with all his canvas set to catch the Trade-wind, stood on, apparently unheeding the approach of the stranger; but his men had the guns cast loose and loaded, and Blundell, with his little band of amateur marines, was very much on the alert.