“Four days later five armed boats rowed out from Monte Cristo towards the convoy, which was lying becalmed. The brig got out sweeps to endeavour to interpose between them and her charges. Two vessels, however, which were lagging behind the others were boarded and captured. To our delight we soon afterwards saw a dark line on the water, and, directly it reached us, set off in pursuit of the captured merchantmen, which were headed towards Monte Cristo. The breeze soon freshened, and we presently overhauled and recaptured them, and then set off in pursuit of the armed boats. These, however, reached the shelter of the shore battery before we could overtake them; as our duty was to protect the convoy and not to cut out prizes, we hauled our wind and followed our charges, and a week later arrived with them all safely in Leghorn roads, and started to join Lord Keith’s squadron off Genoa, which he was blockading at sea while the Austrians beleaguered it on the land side. Here we cruised outside the town for a few days; then Massena surrendered, and the _Speedy_ was ordered to cruise off the Spanish coast. “On our way we captured a native craft off Elba, and a Sardinian vessel laden with oil and wool, which was a prize to a French privateer. We towed her into Leghorn, and again started, and captured the next day a Spanish privateer of ten guns and thirty-three men. Five gun-boats came out from Bastia in chase, but we took the prize in tow, and kept up a running fire with the gun-boats until, after chasing us for some hours, they gave it up. We took several other prizes, and sunk a privateer lying under shelter of a battery. We again took our prizes back into Leghorn, indeed it seemed that we were never to get away from that place, for, starting again, we captured a French privateer, and then fell in with the frigates _Mutine_ and _Salamine_, which handed over to us a number of French prisoners that they had taken, and we had to carry them and our prize back to Leghorn. At last we got fairly away, and reached Port Mahon, capturing a Neapolitan vessel with a French prize crew on board. “As far as I can remember nothing particular happened for the next three months, except that we got damaged in a storm and were six weeks refitting at Port Mahon. Three days after leaving the port we were off Majorca. There were several strange craft in sight; we picked out the largest and started in chase, when a French craft came out, and we altered our course to meet her. After exchanging fire with us for some time she drew off, but got too close inshore and drove on the rocks. As it was evident that she would become a wreck, we left her and captured one of the other ships.