occasions, and distinguished themselves, were Messrs. Thomas F. Leigh and Nicholas Harris Nicolas. Mr. Simpson was subsequently killed by a grape-shot, when in pursuit of a privateer, off Galita.
In July, 1812, the Pilot was sent to the Adriatic, and there placed under the orders of Captain Edwards Lloyd Graham, of the Alcmene frigate, in company with which ship several guns were destroyed at Almezza and in the island of Brazza.
Captain Nicolas was next employed in cruising between Sicily and the coast of Africa, on which station he made several captures; and among them, June 4, 1813, after the third long and anxious chase, the French armed brig Harp, formerly a celebrated privateer pierced for 16 guns, and with a valuable cargo on board, from Marseilles bound to Tunis.
There has been some discussion lately as to when shells were first fired from carronades, and it has been contended, that it is a recent invention of the French. From 1810 to 1813, the Pilot was constantly in the practice of using shells in this manner, and repeated broadsides of them were frequently discharged. They were first obtained from her prize gunboats, and she was afterwards regularly supplied with them at Messina, as they proved most efficacious in dislodging the troops when collected to defend vessels driven on shore. A singular instance of their utility occurred when in chase of the Harp. The pursuit commenced at dusk, and the Pilot did not get within gun-shot until midnight. The first carronade fired threw a shell over the enemy’s brig, which, bursting on the other side of her, convinced her commander that it was a shot from another English man-of-war; when, thinking he was between two fires, he deemed escape hopeless, instantly brought to, and surrendered.
Shortly after the peace with France, in 1814, Captain Nicolas was sent by Lord Exmouth to Murat, then King of Naples, to inquire into a supposed insult offered by a Neapolitan frigate to H.M. sloop Pylades. This circumstance was proved by Joachim, in a personal interview, to have arisen from a
