has taken out a patent for a plan, which has been successfully tried, of reefing and of taking off paddle-floats. He is the inventor, likewise, of a system of connecting and disconnecting engines; and of a new and approved principle of propelling vessels, without the aid of wheels or screw.
HARRIS. (Commander, 1841.)
Robert Harris is brother of the late Sir Wm. Cornwallis Harris, a Major in the E.I.Co.’s Engineers (known in the literary world as the author of ‘The Wild Sports of Southern Africa,’ ‘Portraits of the Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa,’ and ‘The Highlands of Ethiopia’), who received the honour of Knighthood for his diplomatic services at the Court of Shoa, in Abyssinia. Commander Harris was for five years and eight months Gunnery-Lieutenant of the Melville. He has been employed since 1 March, 1848, as Second-Captain in the Ganges 84, Capt. Henry Smith, on particular service.
HELPMAN. (Commander, 1842. f-p., 21; h-p., 5.)
Philip Augustus Helpman is brother of the present Lieut. Benj. Fras. Helpman, R.N., and of Lieut. John Robt. Crichton Helpman, R.N. (1838), who died in 1841 while serving in the Mediterranean as Assistant-Surveyor with Capt. Thos. Graves in the Beacon.
This officer[1] entered the Navy, 19 July, 1821, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Windsor Castle 74, Capt. Chas. Dashwood. Being a Midshipman of that ship in 1824 when Don John of Portugal sought refuge on board of her, he was by the latter presented, as were others, with a medal commemorative of the event. He was subsequently employed, for two years, in affording protection, in the Primrose 18, Capts. John Stoddart and Octavius Vernon Harcourt, to the trade in the West Indies, then much infested with pirates. In Oct. 1826, having invalided home in the Ringdove sloop, Capt. Edwin Ludlow Rich, he joined the Forte 44, Capt. Jeremiah Coghlan, and sailed for South America; whence in 1828 he returned to England as Mate, a short time after he had passed his examination, in the Ranger 28, Capt. Lord Henry Fred. Thynne. He served next, for nearly eight years, in the Mediterranean, in the capacity last mentioned, in the Melville 74, Capts. Chas. Marsh Schomberg and Christopher John Williams Nesham, Britannia 120, flag-ship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm, and Thunderer 84, Capt. Wm. Furlong Wise. He then, in Feb. 1837, joined the Howe 120, flag-ship of Sir Robt. Waller Otway at the Nore; and in the ensuing March he became Senior-Mate of the Fair Rosamond schooner of 2 guns, Lieut.-Commander Wm. Browne Oliver, fitting for the coast of Africa. On 10 Oct. in the same year, while working out of Benin River, he attacked, in the Fair Rosamond’s gig, a brig, armed with 2 18-pounders, and maintained an action which, after seven hours of exertion, terminated in the latter being compelled, with a loss to the gig of 1 man killed and several wounded, to bear up for the river, where she was in a few days captured by the Fair Rosamond. For this and other services Mr. Helpman, on the recommendation of Lieut. Oliver and the Commander-in-Chief, Rear-Admiral Hon. Geo. Elliot, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 26 March, 1839. In 1840 he sailed for China in the Blenheim 72, Capt. Sir Humphrey Fleming Senhouse. On his arrival there he was placed in command of the Mahomed Shaw armed-ship, of 12 guns; and from that vessel he was removed, in the early part of 1841, to the Columbine 16, Capts. Thos. Jordaine Clarke and Wm. Henry Anderson Morshead. He subsequently (besides participating in the second series of operations against Canton, and assisting at the capture of Amoy and Chinghae) served with the naval brigade in the attacks upon Chusan, Ningpo, Yuh-Tah, Tsekee, Funwah, Sheipoo, Woosung, and Shanghae. On the arrival home of the Columbine, in March, 1843, with part of the first instalment of the Chinese ransom, he found that for his conduct during the war he had been promoted to the rank of Commander by a commission bearing date 23 Dec. 1842.
LUSHINGTON. (Captain, 1829.)
Stephen Lushington fought in the Cambrian at the battle of Navarin, 20 Oct. 1827. On the death of Sir Robt. Oliver, in 1848, he was appointed to succeed that officer in the Superintendentship of the Indian Navy; and he was in consequence superseded in the command of the Vengeance.
PACE. (Lieutenant, 1821.)
Edmund Howard Pace is the son of a Chaplain in the Navy. One of his brothers filled the same rank in the Service; and two of them were officers in the Army. During the war with America he saw much boat work in the Chesapeake, and was engaged in frequent skirmishes with the enemy. In the affair at Corrijou he held the rating of Master’s Mate, and brought out the last of the captured vessels. For his conduct at the battle of Algiers he was mentioned in honourable terms by Lord Exmouth to the Prince Regent. He served during the Burmese war in the Columbine and Arachne: on its conclusion he returned home in the latter vessel with despatches.
PARKER. (Commander, 1814.)
Frederick Augustus Hargood Parker was actively employed, while stationed in the Baltic, in affording protection to convoys passing through the Belts; and was at one time detached every night for nearly five weeks on boat-service. He was often in consequence engaged in action with the enemy’s gun-vessels. When First-Lieutenant of the Nightingale he united in the attack of 1807 upon Copenhagen. On the surrender of the Danish fleet he escorted to Yarmouth the officer charged with the delivery of Admiral Gambier’s despatches; and on his return he assisted in fitting the Danish prizes for sea, and in then conducting them to England.
PELLY. (Commander, 1844.)
Richard Wilson Pelly, during his command of the Rose, performed good and valuable service. While stationed for some time in the Gulf of Florida, he had the good fortune, without a blow, to settle a formidable rebellion in the islands of Magdalene; and when senior officer at the blockade of Vera Cruz, on the outbreak of the war between Mexico and the United States, he made such important arrangements with the contending parties as to secure for the royal mail steamers advantages not usual in cases of blockade. For his able and judicious conduct he obtained the high approbation of his Commander-in-Chief, Sir Fras. Wm. Austen, and of the Board of Admiralty, and received very flattering testimonials from the merchants and the British Minister at Mexico. At a period, too, when hostilities were daily expected to take place between Great Britain and the United States, he contrived by an admirable stroke of diplomacy (although three frigates, two large steamers, four corvettes, and several smaller vessels belonging to the latter power were on the station) to procure the removal to the Havana of two large steamers lying up the river Alvarado, which had been built and armed for the Mexican Government, and which, in the event of a rupture, would in all probability have been seized and turned against us by the Americans. The situation in which Commander Pelly was at this juncture placed was responsible in the extreme, inasmuch as the least indiscretion on his part might of itself have led to a collision between the two countries.[2] He was subsequently joined by the Vesuvius steam-
- ↑ He had previously, in 1815, (while on board the Sealark, a schooner cominanded by his father, Lieut. Philip Helpman,) taken part in an affair at Corrijou, noticed in our memoir of Commander James Stirling.
- ↑ So pleased was Her Majesty’s Minister, Mr. Chas. Bankhead, at the whole of Commander Pellv’s conduct, that he acknowledged that the latter had left nothing for him to do.
