Original sentence: Despite their great value, East Indiamen were well-protected, armed with up to 30 guns and rarely travelling outside large convoys in which the ships could provide one another with mutual protection and have the support of a Royal Navy escort, ususally a ship of the line.Horrified, he demanded to be allowed to return to his ship to continue the fight but Captain Henry Meriton on Exeter'' refused.The Action of 4 August 1800''' was a highly unusual naval engagement that took place off the Brazilian coast during the French Revolutionary Wars
Edited sentence: All four vessels were over  and carried 30 guns, but none had more than 120 crew aboard and could not compete in accuracy or rate of fire with the 315 men aboard the French ships.Although Belliqueux was a large vessel, she was old, slow and unwieldy compared to the frigates and may have had significant difficulty in driving off a determined attack.Apalled, Coudin demanded to be allowed to return to his ship and conduct a formal naval battle, but Meriton refused.Arriving on board, he was astonished to see far fewer and smaller guns than would be normally carried on a warship.As his ship drew level with the French frigate, Meriton hailed to the enemy's deck, calling on them to surrender Intimidated by this large and seemingly powerful enemy, Coudin decided that his only option was to strike his flag and come aboard the British ship to make a formal surrender.As night fell the French frigate made a full escape from the British force.Asked by Coudin to whom he had surrendered, Meriton is said to have replied "To a merchantman".At 07:00 on 4 August, Landolphe's lookouts sighted sails on the horizon while cruising off the Brazilian coast.At 17:20, Bulteel was within long range of Landolphe's ship, which returned fire when possible.Bulteel and Meriton were commended, and the latter was to fight two more naval battles against the French, serving at the successful defence of the China Fleet at the Battle of Pulo Aura in February 1804 and eventually being badly wounded and captured after a fierce defense by a French frigate squadron at the Action of 3 July 1810.By 19:00, Franchise had dumped her lifeboats and a large quantity of guns and supplies overboard, lightening the ship enough for it to far outsrip the pursuit.Consisting of the frigates Concorde under Commodore Jean-François Landolphe, Médée under Captain Jean-Daniel Coudin and Franchise under Captain Pierre Jurien it was a powerful force, capable of inflicting significant damage on lightly defended merchant shipping.Despite their great value, East Indiamen were well-protected, armed with up to 30 guns and rarely travelling outside large convoys in which the ships could provide one another with mutual protection and have the support of a Royal Navy escort, usually a ship of the line.During the exchange neither side suffered damage or casualties, but the ship of the line was clearly gaining on the frigate and within ten minutes Landolphe surrendered rather than see his ship destroyed in an unequal combat.Eluding the blockade force off ROchefort, the squadron slipped southwards until it reached the coast of West Africa.Enhancing this image in the rapidly approaching darkness, Meriton arranged lights behind every gunport, whether or not it contained a cannon creating an effect described as "a fearsome, leering jack-o'-lantern".Eventually, the strain of serving in tropical waters told on the ships and all three were forced to undergo an extensive refit in the nearest available allied shipyards, which were located in the Spanish held River Plate in South America.Exeter under Captain Henry Meriton and Bombay Castle under Captain John Hamilton were to follow Médée while Coutts under Captain Robert Torin and Neptune under Captain Nathaniel Spens were to follow Franchise.For six months repairs continued until Landolphe was once again ready to sail in the early summer of 1800, almost immediately capturing an American schooner which was fitted out as a tender: France and the United States had been engaged in the Quasi War for two years.Henry Meriton was aware of the disparity between the French warship and his own merchant vessel, but believed that as the frigate made no effort to fight that her commander must believe Exeter to be a ship of the line.Horrified, he demanded to be allowed to return to his ship to continue the fight but Captain Henry Meriton on Exeter refused.In fact, only one of the vessels posed a serious threat to his force: the seven ships were a convoy of six large East Indiamen sailing from Britain to India, escorted by the 64-gun ship of the line HMS Belliqueux under Captain Rowley Bulteel.Initially he thought they might be merchant ships, but at noon he sighted double rows of gunports alongside each ship and called off the attack, turning away and signalling for his squadron to split up, assuming the enemy to be large warships capable of destroying his force with ease.Médée had not escaped: although Bombay Castle was many miles behind, only distantly visible on the horizon, Exeter was able to follow the frigate closely.On 6 March 1799, a French squadron had sailed from Rochefort.Ordering Belliqueux to pursue Concorde, he signalled to his largest East Indiamen to follow the other French ships to ensure that they did not return and counter attack the convoy while the escort was engaged.The Action of 4 August 1800 was a highly unusual naval engagement that took place off the Brazilian coast during the French Revolutionary Wars.The captured frigates were valuable prizes but were not bought into the Royal Navy, thus denying their captors a significant amount of prize money.The engagement on 4 August 1800 had cost neither side a single man killed or wounded but still inflicted a significant naval defeat on a powerful French frigate force ending its cruise: Franchise, the only French survivor, had lost many guns and much of her supplies and rapidly returned to France.There Landolphe's ships began an extended operation, inflicting severe damage on the West African trade for the rest of the year.They returned to port shortly before the Peace of Amiens and thus were deemed surplus to Navy requirements and not commissioned.Throughout the afternoon the chase continued, Belliqueux steadily gaining on the French flagship while Franchise made rapid progress beyond the range of her pursuers, accompanied by the American schooner.Uncertain of the identy of the strange ships, the French squadron gradually closed during the morning: Landolphe could see that there were seven large vessels, unmistakably British, but he was unable to tell whether they were ships of the line or East Indiamen.With the French in full flight, Bulteel determined to continue to ruse that his convoy consisted of warships