ings on this occasion are thus described by one of Sir Edward Berry’s officers:–
“We sailed from Spithead on the 2d Oct., having on board Lord Robert Fitzgerald, H.M. ambassador to the court of Lisbon. On the 10th, about 2 a.m., we found ourselves in the midst of several large ships, but it being excessively dark, and some difficulty arising about the signal lights, it was day-break before we made them out to be a French squadron, consisting of one three-decker, four other line-of-battle ships, one 54 (the Calcutta, recently captured from the British), two frigates and a brig; with several sail of merchantmen in tow. At this time, the Agamemnon was so near the three-decker, bearing the flag of a Rear-Admiral, that a biscuit might almost have been thrown on board; all the ships going large. She was instantly hauled to the wind, and all sail made; and to the rapidity with which this was effected we owed our safety. We were immediately chased by the three-decker and two other ships; the former occasionally firing at us from her bow-guns. The wind was so fresh, that we could barely carry top-gallant sails over single reefed topsails, and were frequently obliged to take them in. In doing so, we always handed them, thereby gaining some advantage, as the enemy allowed theirs to hang loose until the squall had passed and admitted of their being again set. The hammocks were down, and one watch was ordered to lie down in them; the lee-guns were run in amidships, and the weather quarter boat was cut away. Two of the enemy gained on us; the three-decker barely held her own; the rest of the squadron were soon far astern. One of the former might have brought us to action with the greatest ease. We occasionally made signals and fired guns, in order to deceive the enemy, whose position, however, afforded us but very faint hopes of escape. At this time. Lord Robert Fitzgerald asked Sir Edward Berry if he thought we should be taken? ‘That, my Lord, I cannot exactly say,’ he replied, ‘but I can assure you they shall only have half of her – they shall never take her into port!’ At 10, a.m. one of the two-deckers was far advanced upon our starboard quarter, and the other on our larboard beam; notwithstanding which their chief thought proper to recall them, and bear up after a convoy to leeward, the outward-bound Oporto trade, part of which he captured.
“The Agamemnon, it appeared, was not to be detained by landing Lord Robert Fitzgerald at Lisbon; as we carried him on past Cape St. Vincent, where we fell in with the Nautilus sloop, in which vessel he was conveyed to the Tagus. On the following morning, Oct. 13th, we joined Lord Nelson’s fleet, then ninety-three miles due west of Cadiz.”
On the night previous to the battle of Trafalgar, the situation of the Agamemnon was rather a critical one, she having lost her main top-mast in a heavy squall, while midway be-
