the two were so exactly in a line as to bring them together as seen from the former’s decks.  The English expected every moment to hear the explosion of the lugger’s magazine; but, as it did not happen, they came to the conclusion it had been drowned.  As for Griffin, he pulled in-shore, both to avoid the fire of le Feu-Follet, in passing her broadside, and in the hope of intercepting Raoul while endeavoring to escape in a boat.  He even went to a landing in the river quite a league from the anchorage, and waited there until long past midnight, when, finding the night beginning to cloud over and the obscurity to increase, he returned to the frigate, giving the smouldering wreck a wide berth for fear of accidents.

Such, then, was the state of things when Captain Cuffe appeared on deck just as the day began to dawn on the following morning.  He had given orders to be called at that hour, and was now all impatience to get a view of the sea, more particularly in-shore.  At length the curtain began slowly to rise, and his view extended further and further toward the river, until all was visible, even to the very land.  Not a craft of any sort was in sight.  Even the wreck had disappeared, though this was subsequently discovered in the surf, having drifted out with the current until it struck an eddy, which carried it in again, when it was finally stranded.  No vestige of le Feu-Follet, however, was to be seen.  Not even a tent on the shore, a wandering boat, a drifting spar, or a rag of a sail!  All had disappeared, no doubt, in the conflagration.  As Cuffe went below he walked with a more erect mien than he had done since the affair of the previous morning; and as he opened his writing-desk it was with the manner of one entirely satisfied with himself and his own exertions.  Still, a generous regret mingled with his triumph.  It was a great thing to have destroyed the most pernicious privateer that sailed out of France; and yet it was a melancholy fate to befall seventy or eighty human beings—­to perish like so many curling caterpillars, destroyed by fire.  Nevertheless, the thing was done; and it must be reported to the authorities above him.  The following letter was consequently written to the commanding officer in that sea, viz.: 

     His Majesty’s Ship Proserpine, off the mouth of the Golo,
     Island of Corsica, July 23, 1799.

My Lord—­I have the satisfaction of reporting, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the destruction of the Republican privateer, the le Few-Folly, commanded by the notorious Raoul Yvard, on the night of the 22d inst.  The circumstances attending this important success are as follows:  Understanding that the celebrated picaroon had been on the Neapolitan and Roman coasts, doing much mischief, I took his Majesty’s ship close in, following up the peninsula, with the land in sight, until we got through the Canal of Elba, early on the morning of the 21st.  On opening Porto Ferrajo bay, we