Lord Exmouth’s marine officer in the Arethusa, the late Sir Richard Williams, then commanded the marine artillery, and Lord Exmouth wrote to request that he would aid him to the best of his abilities, by selecting officers and men from his corps.  Sir Richard displayed on this occasion all the activity and judgment to be expected from his character, and Lord Exmouth acknowledged his services after the glorious result of the expedition, in the following words:—­“I should be very ungrateful, my dear friend, if I neglected to thank you for the care and pains you took in selecting, for the service I was ordered upon, the best officers and men I ever saw during my service.  I assure you that all the officers did you full justice:  they not only knew their duty well, but they performed it well.”

In addition to the five line-of-battle ships, two of which were three-deckers, the force included three heavy frigates, and two smaller ones; four bomb vessels, and five gun-brigs.  Four of the line-of-battle ships were to destroy the fortifications on the Mole; while the fifth covered them from the batteries south of the town, and the heavy frigates, from those on the town wall.  The bomb-vessels were to fire on the arsenal and town, assisted by a flotilla of the ships’ launches, &c., fitted as gun, rocket, and mortar-boats.  The smaller frigates and the brigs were to assist as circumstances might require.

The fleet left Portsmouth on the 25th of July.  On the 28th it sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the same afternoon was off Falmouth.  Twenty three years before, Lord Exmouth had gone from the house of his brother, who now took leave of him, and sailed to fight the first battle of the war from the port whence he was proceeding on the service which was to close and crown it.  From this place the Minded, 74, was sent on to Gibraltar, that the necessary supplies might be ready when the fleet arrived.  Through all the passage the utmost care was taken to train the crews.  Every day, Sunday excepted, they were exercised at the guns; and on Tuesdays and Fridays the fleet cleared for action, when each ship fired six broadsides.  On board the Queen Charlotte a twelve-pounder was secured at the after part of the quarter-deck, with which the first and second captains of the guns practised daily at a small target, hung at the fore topmast studding-sail boom.  The target was a frame of laths, three feet square, crossed with rope-yarns so close that a twelve-pound shot could not go through without cutting one, and with a piece of wood, the size and shape of a bottle, for a bull’s-eye.  After a few days’ practice, the target was never missed, and on an average ten or twelve bottles were hit every day.  Thus kept in constant preparation for the battle, and daily gaining new confidence in themselves, the crews were in the highest degree elated.  Officers and men felt they were going to an assured victory, and that to obtain complete success the plans of their chief