place he not only offered battle to a large corvette and a brig of war, but actually chased them back to their strongly protected anchorage. During this cruise the Camelion and her boats captured ten vessels, destroyed one under the batteries at Port Maurice, assisted at the capture of three others, and brought off a raft of spars and timber from the beach near Hieres.
In Sept. 1804, Captain Staines was sent up the Adriatic, with permission from Lord Nelson to cruise for three months according to his own discretion; but we are not aware of his having met with any success on that station. From Dec. 1804 until April 1805, he was principally employed affording protection to the Levant trade; and we subsequently find him accompanying a large homeward bound fleet as far as Gibraltar. On the 15th June, 1805, whilst in the Straits, he was attacked by a flotilla of Spanish gunboats; but on seeing the Camelion get out her sweeps, and a light breeze springing up at the same time, the enemy retreated without doing her any damage.
Captain Staines was next stationed off Carthagena, under the orders of Captain George Digby, commanding the Beagle sloop of war; and on one occasion, when reconnoitring that port, the Camelion appears to have run along the north side of Isle Ascombrera, and stood out through the eastern passage, under a heavy but harmless fire of shot and shells from the different batteries.
A few days after this hazardous proceeding. Captain Staines observed six merchant vessels going to the eastward under the protection of a guarda-costa, and immediately despatched his boats to cut them off. Unfortunately however they were all too well armed, and the gallant party was obliged to retreat with the loss of 5 men killed, wounded, and missing; the latter either drowned in attempting to board the guarda-costa, or secured by the Spaniards after gaining her deck. On the 15th Aug. 1805, the Camelion was obliged to throw all her carronades, shot, provisions, and stores of every description overboard, and to cut away three anchors, in order to effect her escape from a Spanish 74, by which she was
