[Extract]

The frigate Coventry has sailed from Portsmouth on the 28th of this month in destination of the East Indies from where the corvette Hawke just arrived. The frigate Levant arrived in this port on the 29th. She comes from Gibraltar. The letters of the same date from Portsmouth mention a transport ship that had just arrived there in order to embark the horses belonging to the general officers who are to embark themselves in the course of next month in destination of America. The marines who had boarded ship at Plymouth were still there on the 26th of this month, detained by unfavorable winds.

I have often heard, My lord, that our sea officers were excellent in theory and superior to the British in that matter, and that they lacked only the practice acquired at sea; to tell the truth, the latter is considered as more essential than the former. Since the scarcity of our commissions does not allow them to acquire this practice as much as they would like, would it not be possible to use the youngest ones as volunteers in the fleet now being commissioned in the Spanish ports. It seems to me, My lord, that there would result among other advantages an opportunity to bind by a mutual esteem the officers of the two nations who will eventually be called upon to defend the respective possessions of their Sovereigns. I beg your pardon, My lord, if I take it upon myself to make such a suggestion; and I beg to impute the liberty that I take on this occasion only to my most sincere zeal.