troops under General Maitland to assist the royalists.  Next day, the squadron arrived and anchored; and on the 4th, the forts on the peninsula were attacked and silenced by the Thames, 32, with some of the small craft; and destroyed by a party of troops.  Several vessels, taken at the same time, were brought off or scuttled.  Very early on the morning of the 6th, the armed launches, and a division of small craft, were sent away under Lieutenant Pilford, of the Impetueux, which completed the destruction of the shipping in the Morbihan, bringing off six prizes, and destroying several others, among which was the Insolente, 16-gun brig.  They landed at the same time about three hundred troops, who carried and dismantled a fort.  The whole service was effected with the loss of two men killed on board the Thames, and one in the boats.  By this time, it was placed beyond doubt that the invalids were not strong enough to warrant a descent.  Sir Edward, therefore, proposed an immediate attack on Belleisle, which had long been a favourite object with him, from a conviction that nothing would enable the British to harass the enemy more effectually than the possession of that island.  He earnestly combated the doubts of the General, and pressed the point with all the energy of his character.  Filled with the ardour so naturally inspired by the opportunity to attempt a long-cherished enterprise, he exclaimed, “I will be everywhere at your side, only let us attack the place without delay.”  But the General, who could not feel that confidence founded on a knowledge of the place, which Sir Edward had gained from having long cruised in the neighbourhood; and who well knew the difficulty and loss which a much larger force had formerly experienced in taking it, objected to the attempt, and the enemy in a few days decided the question by strongly reinforcing the garrison.  The troops were then landed upon the small island of Houat, about two leagues to the south-east of Quiberon Point, where they remained encamped, while Sir Edward cruised with his squadron off Port Louis.

Towards the end of July, Mr. Coghlan, who had assisted Sir Edward in saving the people from the Dutton, and was now commanding the Viper cutter, tender to the Impetueux, with the rank of acting lieutenant, proposed and obtained permission to cut out a brig of war, which lay moored within the port.  Accordingly, with twelve volunteers from the Impetueux, and a midshipman and six men from the Viper, in the line-of-battle ship’s ten-oared cutter, a boat from the Viper, and another from the Amethyst frigate, he went away on the night of the 26th to attack a national brig of seven guns, three of them long twenty-four pounders, and with eighty-seven men on board.