“June 20, 1793.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[3] A list of the killed and wounded.

[4] After the action, Mr. Norway requested permission to keep the body of Mr. Pearse for interment by his friends.  Captain Pellew for answer desired Mr. N. to read the contents of a paper which he drew from his pocket.  It was a direction that if he, Capt.  P., should foil, his body should at once be thrown overboard.  Of course Mr. N. immediately withdrew his request.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WESTERN SQUADRONS.

The capture of the first frigate in a war is always an object of much interest; and the circumstances of the late action, the merit of which was enhanced by the skill and gallantry of the enemy, gave additional importance to Captain Pellew’s success.  “I never doubted,” said Lord Howe, “that you would take a French frigate; but the manner in which you have done it, will establish an example for the war.”

The brothers were introduced to the King on the 29th of June, by the Earl of Chatham, First Lord of the Admiralty; when Captain Pellew received the honour of knighthood, and his brother was made a post-captain.  Besides the usual promotions, the master, Mr. Thomson, received a lieutenant’s commission.  As Mr. Thomson was a master of considerable standing, the captain supposed that he would decline the change to be a junior lieutenant; but the master preferred to get into the line for promotion, and as the result showed, he decided wisely, for he followed Sir Edward to the Arethusa and Indefatigable; and as he had the singular fortune to fight four brilliant actions in three years and a-half, each of which obtained promotion for his first lieutenant, Mr. Thomson thus rose rapidly to seniority, and was made a commander for the action with the Droits de l’Homme.

Captain Mullon was buried at Portsmouth, with all the honours due to his gallantry.  One of Sir Edward’s first acts was to write a letter of condolence to the widow; and as he learnt that she was left in narrow circumstances, he sent, with her husband’s property, what assistance his then very limited means enabled him to offer.  Madame Mullon acknowledged his attention and kindness in a most grateful letter.  He received also the warm acknowledgments of the Cleopatra’s surviving officers, the senior of whom requested and received from him testimonials of the skill and gallantry with which they had defended their ship, without which their defeat, in the bloody councils which then prevailed, would probably have brought them to the scaffold.  What was scarcely to be expected at such a time, and after a first defeat, it was admitted in the Moniteur that the “superb frigate” the Cleopatra had been taken by a frigate of equal force.