the Rattler under his orders; and l’Aimable frigate was placed at an intermediate anchorage to repeat his signals to the Commodore, whose orders were either conveyed through the same medium, or by means of small vessels, commanded by Lieutenants. To facilitate the communication of Captain Hancock’s observations, and the Commodore’s directions, flags of an extraordinary size were used instead of the customary signals, which flags expressed their import, not by colour, but by number And position. We have been thus minute, in consequence of the obscure manner in which the following official report of the first general action is worded:
“My Lord,– Information from all quarters, and the evident state of readiness in which the enemy’s armaments were in Helvoet, Flushing, and Ostend, indicating the probability of a general movement from those ports, I reinforced Captain Manby, off Helvoet, with one ship, and directed Captain Hancock of the Cruiser, stationed in shore, to combine his operations and the Rattler’s with the squadron of gun brigs stationed off Ostend.
“The Antelope, Penelope, and Aimable, occupied a centrical position in sight both of Flushing and Ostend, in anxious expectation of the enemy’s appearance. Yesterday, at half-past 5 A.M., I received information from Captain Hancock, then off Ostend, that the enemy’s flotilla was hauling out of that pier, and that twenty-one one-masted vessels and one schooner were already outside in the roads[1]. At half-past 7 the same morning, I had the satisfaction to see the Flushing flotilla, of fifty-nine sail, viz. two ship-rigged- ↑ This division hauled out on the evening of the 15th, and Captain Hancock immediately made the signal of recall to the squadron of gun brigs, then standing to the westward, under the orders of Lieutenant Patrick Manderston. Having done this, and despatched a cutter with the intelligence to Sir W. Sidney Smith, the Cruiser and Rattler got under weigh at dark, and re-anchored within long range of the batteries at the pierhead, the better to prevent the escape of the vessels which had brought up within the Stroom sand. On the 16th at day-break, the gun-brigs, being still in sight, were again recalled; but, as on the preceding evening, they either did not see, or misunderstood the signal.
