However, having just received a remittance from London of £300 sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer in that dull cause, and away I went with them at all hazards. It belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless expedition, only to tell you that, being so closely and effectually chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French, I may say that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.
It was the good fortune of the French that they overshot the port they aimed at, and intending for the Frith of Forth, or, as it is called, the Frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide. But this delay or hindrance gave time to the English, under Sir George Byng, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.
Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been destroyed in two days, and all we could have done had been to have gotten into the pier or haven at Leith with the smaller frigates, and have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours behind us, or thereabout.
Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of the frith where we lay, and crowding away to the north, got the start of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship only, which, being behind the rest, could not get away.
When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till the third night, when we altered our course and lost sight of them, we stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear; and being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk; and glad I was to set my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our lives I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding that, if I had been taken, I should certainly have been hanged.