raider and outpost officer.  Of this type was Pellew, Lord Exmouth, a seaman inbred, if ever there was one, who in this sphere won the renown most distinctively associated with his name, while giving proof throughout a long career of high professional capacity in many directions.  But while Saumarez, in his turn, was occasionally employed in frigate and light cruiser service, and always with great credit, his heart was with the ship-of-the-line, whose high organization, steady discipline, and decisive influence upon the issues of war appealed to a temperament naturally calm, methodical, and enduring.  “He always preferred the command of a ship-of-the-line to a frigate,” says his biographer, who knew him well,—­“notwithstanding the chances of prize-money are in favor of the latter;” and he himself confirmed the statement, not only by casual utterance,—­“My station as repeating frigate is certainly more desirable than a less conspicuous one, at the same time I would rather command a seventy-four,”—­but by repeated formal applications.  In variety and interest of operations, as well as in prize-money, did a cruising frigate have advantages; for much of the time of ships-of-the-line passed necessarily in methodical routine and combined movements, unfavorable to individual initiative.  Nevertheless, their functions are more important and more military in character.  In accordance with this preference Saumarez is found, whether by his own asking or not, serving the remaining three years of his lieutenant’s time upon vessels of that class; and in one of them he passed through his next general action, a scene of carnage little inferior to the Charleston fight, illustrated by the most dogged courage on the part of the combatants, but also, it must be said, unrelieved by any display of that skill which distinguishes scientific warfare from aimless butchery.  This, however, was not Saumarez’s fault.

Towards the end of 1780, Great Britain, having already France, Spain, and America upon her hands, found herself also confronted by a league between the Baltic states to enforce by arms certain neutral claims which she contested.  To this league, called the Armed Neutrality, Holland acceded, whereupon England at once declared war.  Both nations had extensive commercial interests in the Baltic, and it was in protecting vessels engaged in this trade, by a large body of ships of war, that the only general action between the two navies occurred.  This was on the 5th of August, 1781, in the North Sea, off the Dogger-Bank, from which it has taken its name.

At the time of meeting, the British, numbering six ships-of-the-line, were returning from the Baltic; the Dutch, with seven ships, were bound thither.  Despite the numerical difference, no great error is made in saying that the two squadrons were substantially of equal force.  Each at once ordered the merchant vessels under its protection to make the best of their way towards port, while the ships of war on either