Pellew, with two frigates besides his own, was stationed off the mouth of Brest harbor to watch the enemy’s movements; the main British fleet being some fifty miles to seaward.  To this emergency he brought not only the intrepidity of a great seaman and the ardor of an anxious patriot, but likewise the intense though narrow Protestant feeling transmitted from a past, then not so remote, when Romanism and enmity to England were almost synonymous.  “How would you like,” said he to an officer who shared Pitt’s liberal tendencies, “to see Roman Catholic chaplains on board our ships?” and to the end of his life he opposed the political enfranchisement of persons of that creed.

The French expedition against Ireland sailed from Brest on the 16th of December, 1796.  Having sent off successively each of his consorts with information for the fleet, Pellew remained with his own ship alone, the Indefatigable, at the moment of the final start.  There are two principal channels by which Brest can be left, one leading to the south, the other due west.  The French admiral had at first intended to use the former; but, the wind showing signs of an unfavorable shift, he endeavored to change the orders just as night was falling.  The weather being hazy, his signals were understood by but few of the forty-odd vessels composing the force.  Eight or ten joined him; the remainder followed the original instructions and went out by the south.  Pellew attached himself to the admiral’s division, kept along with it just out of gun-shot, and by making false signals, burning blue lights and sending up rockets, introduced into the attempts to convey the wishes of the commander-in-chief such confusion as rendered them utterly futile.  Having satisfied himself as to the general direction taken by the enemy, he left them, and made all sail for Falmouth, where he arrived on the 20th.

The general fortunes of the expedition do not belong to the present story.  Suffice it to say that the greater part reached Ireland safely, but through stress of weather was unable to land the troops, and went back to France by detachments, in January, 1797.  It is during this process of return that Sir Edward Pellew again appears, in perhaps the most dramatic incident of his stirring career.

On the afternoon of January 13th, being then in company with the frigate Amazon, and about one hundred and twenty miles west of Brest, a French ship-of-the-line was discovered.  The stranger, named the Droits de l’Homme, was returning from Ireland, and heading east.  The frigates steered courses converging towards hers, seeking to cut her off from the land.  The weather was thick and gloomy, with a strong west wind fast rising to a gale.  At half-past four, as night was falling, the French ship carried away her fore and main topmasts in a heavy squall; and an hour later the Indefatigable, now under close reefs, passed across her stern, pouring in a broadside from so near that the French flag floated