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 , when reporting this action to the Admiralty, informed their lordships that they would see in his communication “an instance of that zeal and enterprise which marked the general conduct of her commander”; whose admirable behaviour off Cadiz, on the 4th April 1808, is thus described by Captain (now Sir Murray) Maxwell, in a public letter to Rear-Admiral Purvis, the senior officer on that station:

Nineteen days after this exploit, and two previous to the date of his post commission, Captain Searle had the good fortune to capture two Spanish merchant vessels from South America, each having a cargo worth 30,000l. sterling. When first discovered, they were proceeding alongshore, under the protection of four gun-boats; but on being chased by the Grasshopper and another brig, they pushed in among the