It is of some historical value: "Their seamen, if we may judge from our own prisoners, are in a very bad state both with respect to discipline and knowledge of their profession; both which were evidently shown by the condition we saw them in on the 31st, many of them being without topmasts and topsail yards, and nearly in as bad a state as on the 29th after the action.

'Tis true they were rather better when we saw them in the morning of June 1st.

Out of our 198 prisoners there certainly cannot be above 15 or 20 seamen, and all together were the dirtiest, laziest set of beings conceivable.

How an idea of liberty, and more so that of fighting for it, should enter into their heads, I know not; but by their own confession it is not their wish and pleasure, but that of those who sent them; and so little is it their own that in the Brunswick (who was engaged yardarm and yardarm with the Vengeur) they could see the French officers cutting down the men for deserting their quarters.

Indeed, in the instances of the Russell and Thunderer when close to the Revolutionnaire, and ours when cutting the line, the French do not like to come too close.