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One of the dinners at the Darling Arms, and perhaps the most brilliant and exciting of the whole, because even the waiters understood the subject, was the entertainment given in the month of December, A.D. 1803, not only by the officers of two regiments quartered for the time near Stonnington, but also by all the leading people round about those parts, in celebration of the great work done by His Majesty's 38-gun frigate Leda.
From 1793 to the end of the Trafalgar year the 38-gun frigates increased from 8 to 50, and the 36-gun frigates from 16 to 54. The liking for three-deckers, professed by some officers of Nelson's time, seems to have been due to a belief, not in the merit of their size as such, but in the value of the increased number of medium guns carried on a 'middle' deck.
He followed them all night, when, early in the morning of the 16th, another ship was seen in the south-west, which hoisting her number showed herself to be the 38-gun frigate Ethalion, Captain James Young; and soon afterwards two other 32-gun frigates, the Alcmene, Captain Digby, and the Triton, Captain J. Gore appeared.
"I only hope, Uncle Fancourt, that you will soon be able to get me afloat again, though I am not tired of home yet." "I shall be able to fulfil your wishes, for the Admiralty have appointed me to the command of the Triton, 38-gun frigate, ordered to be fitted out with all despatch at Portsmouth. Before many weeks are over she will, I hope, be ready for sea.
The Admiralty had, however, anticipated him, and had already ordered the construction of several fire-ships, which, on the arrival from the Mediterranean of Lord Cochrane, commanding the 38-gun frigate Imperieuse, were placed under his command.
"I'm precious glad I ain't goin' to sea in her," observed another. "Same here," said the first speaker. "Why, look at the Siren over there! She's a 38-gun frigate, and her mainmast is only two feet longer than the Daphne's as I happen to know, for I had a hand in the buildin' of both the spars. The sloop's over-masted, that's what she is." I turned away and bent my steps homeward.
She proved to be an 18-pounder 38-gun frigate, with a flush upper-deck fore and aft, which presented a beautifully spacious appearance to us who had been accustomed to the cramped look of the "Juno's" upper-deck, cut into by the poop and topgallant-forecastle.
All this was clear to Captain Reid, and when he saw a rapid signaling begun between the three vessels of the enemy, he felt confident that he was to be attacked. He had already discovered that the strangers were the 74-gun ship of the line "Plantagenet," the 38-gun frigate "Rota," and the 18-gun war-brig "Carnation," comprising a force against which he could not hope to win a victory.
Success, however, did not always attend on the "star-spangled banner," and, as was natural, the captains of the British 38-gun frigates were eager to fall in with one of the famed American forty-fours. Among others, Captain Philip Vere Broke, commanding the Shannon frigate, resolved, if possible, to show what a well-disciplined crew could do.
In his official report Decatur said: "Two fresh ships of the enemy, the 38-gun frigates Pomone and Tenedos, had come up. The Pomone had opened fire on the port bow, within musket shot, the other, about two cables' length astern, taking a raking position on our quarter, and the rest, with the exception of the Endymion, within gunshot.
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