A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Lecount, Peter
LECOUNT, F.R.A.S. (Lieutenant, .1827. f-p., 18; h-p., 20.)
Peter Lecount was born 25 May, 1794.
This officer entered the Navy, 29 Dec. 1809, as L.M., on board the Thunder bomb, Capt. Wm. Shepheard, under whom he continued to serve, as Midshipman, in the Colombine and Comet sloops until 1812. While in the Thunder at the siege of Cadiz in 1810 he appears to have been not less than 45 times in action with the enemy, witnessing, during that period, the destruction of Fort Matagorda – sharing, also, in an engagement with Fort Napoleon, when one of the prison-ships, filled with détenus, had broken from her moorings and drifted under the enemy’s fire, as likewise with Fort Catalina in an attempt to afford assistance to a Spanish 74 which had grounded near it – serving, too, in the boats when they were thrice beaten off in an effort to board the Argonaut 80, another prison-ship (ultimately burnt), which had got under the French batteries – engaging the enemy, next, while they were erecting a battery on the Trocadero – contributing, further, to the bringing out of the American schooner Priscilla, after the latter had been deserted by her crew under Catalina – and present in an attack made by the British flotilla on a strong detachment of gun-vessels on their way from Rota to Port Santa Maria. Among the numerous (many of them fierce) cutting-out affairs in which Mr. Lecount took part when in the Columbine, was the capture, by three boats, after 40 had failed, of the Guadalquiver privateer, near San Lucar, on which occasion he lost the sight of his right eye and was slightly wounded in the right foot and left arm. In a previous expedition of the same nature every man in his boat had been either killed or knocked overboard. From 1812 until Feb. 1816, in the course of which month he .passed his examination, Mr. Lecount (who had co-operated, we should state, in the defence of Tarifa, and been present at the battle of Barrosa) served with activity on the Home, Jamaica, and Newfoundland stations, in the Circe 32, Capt. Edw. Woolcombe, Fylla 22, Capt. Wm. Shepheard (in which ship he assisted at the capture, in Jan. 1814, of L’Inconnu French privateer, of 15 guns and 109 men). Harlequin 18, Capt. Wm. Kempthorne,’and Africaine 38, Capt. Hon. Edw. Rodney. He was subsequently appointed Admiralty-Midshipman – in April, 1816, of the Meander 38, Capts. John Bastard and Arthur Fanshawe, stationed in the Channel – next, of the Infernal bomb, Capt. Hon. Geo. Jas. Percival, under whom he served at the bombardment of Algiers – in Oct. 1816, of the Conqueror 74, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Robt. Plampin at St. Helena – and, in Dec. 1820, of the Queen Charlotte 100, Capts. Thos. Briggs, John Baker Hay, and J. Nash, lying at Portsmouth. On quitting the latter ship in April, 1824, Mr. Lecount became Admiralty-Mate of the Prince Regent 120, bearing the flag at the Nore of Sir Robt. Moorsom, who, at the expiration of his command, most unexpectedly presented him, 6 Aug. 1827, with the hauling-down commission at his disposal. He has since been on half-pay.
Lieut. Lecount, a Civil Engineer, is the author, among other works, of a pamphlet entitled ‘A Practical Treatise on Railways,’ being an article which originally appeared under that head in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; also of three treatises on railway bearings; and of one on the polarization and inflection of light. An important dissertation, published by him in 1820, on Variable Magnetism, led to his being elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society while yet a Midshipman, the only instance of the kind known. He held an appointment for some time on the London and Birmingham Railway.