“On the 26th of September, a squadron, consisting of the 74-gun ship _Plantagenet_, Captain Robert Lloyd; 38-gun frigate _Rota_, Captain Philip Somerville; and 18-gun brig _Carnation_, Commander George Bentham, cruising off the Western Islands, discovered at anchor in Fayal Roads the American schooner privateer _General Armstrong_, Captain Camplin, of seven guns and ninety men. The neutrality of the port having been violated by the American captain in firing on a boat from the _Plantagenet_, by which two men were killed and two wounded, Captain Lloyd determined to attempt the capture of the privateer by the boats of the squadron. At 8 h. P.M. the _Plantagenet_ and _Rota_ anchored off Fayal Road, and at 9 h. seven boats from the two ships, containing one hundred and eighty men, under the orders of Lieutenant William Matterface of the _Rota_, departed on this service. At midnight, after a fatiguing pull, the boats arrived within hail, when they received from the schooner, and from a battery erected with some of her guns on a point of land, a heavy fire of cannon and musketry. Two of the boats were sunk, and more than half the men that had been sent away in them killed or wounded. The remainder returned, and about 2 h. A.M. on the 27th reached the _Rota_. The _Rota’s_ first and third lieutenants (Matterface and Charles R. Norman), one midshipman, and thirty-one seamen and marines were killed; and her second lieutenant, Richard Rawle, Lieutenant of Marines Thomas Park, ---- Bridgeman (acting) purser, two midshipmen, and eighty-one men wounded. Soon after daylight the _Carnation_ stood into the roads to attack the privateer; but the Americans set fire to and destroyed her.” A careful examination of this report will be found most interesting. First of all let the reader observe that the American consul in his official report says that the captain of the _Rota_ admitted a loss of seventy from that one ship. But Allen says that the _Rota’s_ loss was thirty-four killed and eighty-five wounded--in all one hundred and nineteen. This is important because it proves that Consul Dabney in his report of the British losses understated at least the loss of the _Rota_; it proves that he was entirely candid and fair in his report. He truthfully reported what the British officers told him. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that when he says the British officers admitted to him that they had lost one hundred and twenty of their best men, he also tells the truth. It is not unreasonable to suppose further that these British officers understated the facts, as did the captain of the _Rota_ when talking to him.