And yet, mysterious as their proceedings were, ample evidence is at hand that the packets were both willing and able to fight as occasion required. Indeed, to this period belong some of their smartest engagements. We will give one or two instances. On the evening of the 17th of October 1797 the _Portland_ packet, Captain Taylor, was lying becalmed off the island of Guadeloupe when a French privateer, the _Temeraire_, bore down upon her. The privateer carried sixty-eight men and the packet thirty-two. A light breeze springing up, the _Portland's_ head was got off shore, and for the time she contrived to elude her antagonist, who followed her all night under easy sail. At daybreak the same distance separated the two ships as on the preceding evening; but as the _Temeraire_ began to overtake the _Portland_, Taylor fired the first shot. The shot was returned, and the privateer hoisting the bloody flag grappled the _Portland_ and boarded her on the lee quarter. Laying hold of the jib-stay Taylor ordered it to be lashed to the packet, and called upon the passengers and crew to open their musketry. A fierce engagement ensued, which ended in favour of the _Portland_. Out of sixty-eight men on board the privateer no less than forty-one were either killed or wounded. A treacherous shot fired after she had struck her colours carried off the captain of the packet in the moment of victory, and as he was endeavouring to allay the carnage. Among the passengers on board the _Portland_ were four military officers, captains in the English army. That these officers in no small measure contributed to the result may be taken for granted; but silent as to their own deeds they extolled in the highest terms the prowess of the captain and crew, and it was from the independent testimony which they and the other passengers bore that the gallant action became known to the postmasters-general. Another and still more brilliant engagement had taken place a few years before. On the 27th of November 1793 the _Antelope_ packet, Captain Curtis, sailed from Port Royal in Jamaica with twenty-nine men. She, like the _Portland_, had on board a few passengers, among whom were Colonel Loppinott, an independent witness to the events that followed, and a young man of the name of Nodin. Nodin had been a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and, having resigned his commission, was on his way home to England to seek for other employment.