Your letter of 4 November, advised this Board that the two French privateers at Plymouth called the MERMAID and JOSEPH, taken by the RUPERT and DEVONSHIRE, were not fitting to be employed as men-of-war, but may be serviceable as fireships. You are directed to have them fitted accordingly at Plymouth as other more pressing work will admit. They are to be established with 30 men for the former and 45 men for the latter, with 8 guns each of the same nature as for other fireships.