"I forget if I told you that, while our ship was undergoing repairs in dock at Port Royal, Lieutenant Foley, Molly--I mean Lord Mountstephen-- with Nat Kiddle and me, and about twenty of our hands, were turned over to the _Augusta_, 60-gun ship, commanded by Captain Forrest; and immediately afterwards were ordered to proceed to sea, accompanied by two other ships under his orders, the _Edinburgh_, of sixty-four guns, Captain Langdon, and the _Dreadnought_, of sixty guns, Captain Morris Suckling. We soon found that we were to cruise off Cape Francois, on the north coast of Saint Domingo, to watch a French squadron under Commodore De Kearsaint, who was collecting a large number of merchantmen which he was to convoy from that port to Europe. The admiral had been informed that the French had only three line-of-battle ships, which, although somewhat larger than we were, he knew very well that we should thrash if we could come up with them. We gained intelligence, however, from a French despatch vessel which we captured, that the enemy's squadron had lately been increased by four other ships, one of which, by-the-by, was a ship of ours--the _Greenwich_--of fifty guns, captured a few months ago, when commanded by Captain Roddam, off this very island. He had nothing to be ashamed of, for with his single ship he bravely faced five sail of the line and several frigates, and wasn't taken till he had lost all chance of escaping except by going to the bottom. Thus, you see, the French had seven ships to our three, and we heard besides that they had been strongly manned by volunteers from the garrison and merchant vessels, and made sure that they should either drive us away or capture us.