It was not till after Admiral Nelson’s arrival at Naples, that he heard of the capture of the Leander, with his dispatches for the Earl of St. Vincent respecting the battle of the Nile; an event for which, as has been seen, he had judiciously and almost prophetically prepared, by transmitting copies to England.  By letters from Corfu, he now learned that, on the 16th of August, the Leander of fifty guns, Captain Thompson, having Captain Berry on board, with the dispatches for the Earl of St. Vincent, fell in with Le Genereux of seventy-four guns, Captain Lejoille, Jun. one of the French ships which had escaped after the battle of the Nile.  The Leander, with eighty men short of it’s complement, and a number of wounded on board, being off the island of Candia, was chased by Le Genereux under Neapolitan colours; which, on approaching nearly within gun-shot, about eight in the morning, were changed to French.  Captain Thompson had not been deceived by this artifice, but the Leander’s inferiority of sailing rendered it impossible to escape.  At nine, being within half gun-shot of the Leander’s weather-quarter, Captain Thompson hauled up sufficiently to bring his broadside to bear, and immediately commenced a vigorous cannonade, which was powerfully returned.  The ships continued nearing each other till half past ten, under a constant and heavy fire; when the enemy, taking advantage of the disabled condition of the Leander, endeavoured to enter on the larboard bow:  but the small party of marines, on the poop and quarter-deck, by a most spirited and well-directed fire, aided by a furious cannonade, repulsed them with great slaughter.  A light breeze now springing up, enabled Captain Thompson to disentangle himself; and, soon after, he had the satisfaction to luff under Le Genereux’s stern, and discharge every gun into that ship, at the distance of only ten yards.  The action continued, within pistol-shot, till half past three in the afternoon; when Le Genereux, with a light breeze, passed the Leander’s bows, and brought itself on the starboard side, where the guns had been all nearly disabled by the wreck of the spar, which had fallen on that side.  This necessarily producing a cessation of the Leander’s fire, the enemy hailed, to know if the ship had surrendered.  Being now a complete wreck; the decks covered with killed and wounded; and Captain Thompson himself badly wounded, without the most distant hope of success; that brave officer asked Captain Berry, if it appeared that more could be done:  who, agreeing that farther resistance would be in vain, they consented to submit.  Le Genereux had on board nine hundred men; one hundred of whom were killed, and a hundred and eighty-eight wounded, in the action; the Leander had thirty-five killed, and fifty-eight wounded.  The captain of Le Genereux, in an official letter of true French gasconade, describes the Leander as carrying “seventy-four guns, twenty-four, and thirty pounders on the lower deck, and twelve pounders on the upper!”