by John Marshall, Royal Naval Biography — Clinch… (1823)
“ On the 27th June following, being then about 60 leagues to the N.E. of Barbuda, in company with the Kingfisher sloop, Captain Richard William Cribb, he was pursued by five French frigates; but no sooner did the enemy observe the Osprey and her consort hoist signals and fire guns, as if to a fleet a-head of them, than they relinquished the chase, and set fire to fifteen British merchant vessels under their charge, which had been captured about three weeks before, by the French and Spanish combined squadrons under Mons. ”
