the Newcastle 58, Capt. Lord Geo. Stuart. In that ship he lent his aid to the capture of the privateers Ida of 10 guns and 65 men, and the Prince de Neufchâtel of 18 guns and 135 men; and on 19 Dec. 1814 he took command of her barge and cut out four vessels from Boston Bay, an exploit which occasioned him a loss of 1 1 men killed and wounded. Illness compelling him to leave the Newcastle in Feb. 1815, he returned home a passenger in the Conway 26; and on 13 of the following June was promoted to the rank of Commander. His succeeding appointments were – 13 June, 1820, to the Beaver sloop, in which vessel, after visiting Madeira, Teneriffe, St. Jago, Trinidad on the Main, Tristan de Cunha, and the Cape of Good Hope, he proceeded off St. Helena, where, on the morning after the decease of Napoleon Buonaparte, 6 May, 1821, he formed one of the three Naval Captains admitted to view the body of the unfortunate Emperor[1] – 7 July, 1821, to the Rosario 10, part of the squadron selected to escort the remains of Queen Caroline from Harwich to Cuxhaven – and, 31 March, 1823 (having paid the latter vessel off 7 Feb. 1822), to the Larne 20, fitting for the East Indies. Joining, in May, 1824, in the hostilities against Ava, Capt. Marryat continued from that period until the following Sept. to officiate as senior Naval Officer in co-operation with the expedition under Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell, K.C.B., and won considerable fame by the able, gallant, and zealous manner in which he discharged the duties of that conspicuous and responsible post. He subsequently, during the months of Feb. and March, 1825, commanded an armament sent in conjunction with a military force under Major Sale up the Bassein River, where the services he rendered materially operated in the general results of the campaign.[2] His conduct from first to last, indeed, was so marked that it procured him the repeated acknowledgments of the Supreme Government and other high authorities in India, and was the means of his being included in a vote of thanks from both Houses of Parliament, his rank proving the only obstacle to his being personally named. In April, 1825, Capt. Marryat assumed acting-command of the Tees 26, owing to a death vacancy; but his Post-commission was not signed until 25 July following. In the early part of 1826 he returned to England and paid the Tees off. He was nominated a C.B. 26 Dec. in the same year; and was lastly, from 10 Nov. 1828 until Nov. 1830, employed in the Ariadne 28 on diplomatic service at Madeira and the Western Islands, and in searching for supposed dangers in the Atlantic.
In addition to the productions which have rendered him famous as a novelist, Capt. Marryat is the author of a work, published in 1822, entitled ‘Suggestions for the Abolition of the present System of Impressment in the Naval Service,’ a volume in which he so clearly demonstrated the propriety of all merchant-vessels carrying apprentices in proportion to their tonnage, instead of West Indiamen only, as was then the case, that in a few months Government adopted his views. He had previously invented a code of signals for vessels in the merchant-service, including a cipher for secret correspondence, now in general use by our own and all foreign navies.[3] On their being translated into French, and supplied by ordonnance to the French marine and merchant service, the King of the French sent him the Croix d’Officier of the Legion d’Honneur. In Dec. 1847 Capt. Marryat was awarded the Good Service pension. He married, 21 Jan. 1819, Catherine, youngest daughter of Sir Stephen Shairp, of Russell Place, formerly Chargé d’Affaires at the Court of Russia, by whom he has, with other issue, two sons, both in the R.N. – the elder, Frederick, a Lieutenant.
MARRYAT. (Lieutenant, 1845.)
Frederick Marryat is eldest son of Capt. Fred Marryat, R.N., C.B.
This officer entered the Navy in 1830; passed his examination 8 Jan. 1841; and after a servitude of more than three years in the East Indies as Mate of the Cambrian 36, Capt. Henry Ducie Chads, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 1 Sept. 1845. His appointments have since been – 5 Oct. 1846, to the Sphynx steam-sloop, Capt. John Bettinson Cragg, his exertions in rescuing which vessel, when aground in Brixstone Bay in Jan. 1847, procured him the thanks of the Admiralty, but nearly cost him his life – and, 9 April, 1847, to the Avenger steam-frigate of 650 horse-power, Capt. Sidney Colpoys Dacres, now on the Lisbon station. On two consecutive evenings in the month of Oct. 1847 Lieut. Marryat intrepidly plunged into the sea after a man who had each time fallen overboard. On the last occasion, the drowning person having convulsively clasped him round the neck, he would have been inevitably lost had it not been for the presence of mind of the First-Lieutenant, Hugh Mallett Kinsman, who, observing the danger in which his shipmates were placed, instantly jumped in himself and was the means of their both being saved.
MARSH. (Captain, 1842. f-p., 21; h-p., 20.)
Digby Marsh is third son of the Rev. Jeremy Marsh, Rector of Rosenallis, Queen’s County, by Rachel, daughter of Colonel Montgomery, who was murdered during the rebellion of 1798. He is a direct descendant of Francis and Narcissus Marsh, Lords Primate of Ireland and Dublin; as also of the celebrated Jeremy Taylor. Among his professional relatives are the present Capt. Joseph and Lieut. Edw. Digby, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, 10 Jan. 1806, as Fst.-cL Vol., on board the Eurus store-ship, Capt. Ennis; and on 15 of the following month removed to the Minerva frigate, commanded by the late Sir Geo. Ralph Collier; with whom he continued to serve as Midshipman, Master’s Mate, and for a short time as Acting-Lieutenant, in the Surveillante 38, until Nov. 1813. He assisted, in the Minerva, at the capture of Copenhagen in Sept. 1807; and was actively employed, in the Surveillante, in co-operation with the patriots on the north coast of Spain, where he was severely wounded in a breaching battery at the siege of St. Sebastian in Aug. and Sept. 1813.[4] On the occasion of the second assault on that place he volunteered to conduct a column of Portuguese infantry over the breach; as he also did to recross it under a heavy fire for the purpose of conveying a pencil despatch from the commander of the storming party ordering a reinforcement. This service was handsomely and warmly acknowledged by the late Sir Alex. Dixon, then in command of the Artillery. Mr. Marsh had previously served in a boat belonging to the Surveillante at the capture of a French merchant-brig between the batteries of St. Guildas and St. Jacques, in Quiberon Bay, 5 Sept. 1810;[5]
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1821, p. 1409.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1824, pp. 1957, 1965; and Gaz. 1825, pp. 325, 327, 498, 1494, 2277.
- ↑ Not less than five times has Capt. Marryat generonsly hazarded his existence for the preservation of others. The first instance of the kind occurred in 1807, when he jumped from the Impérieuse and saved a midshipman, Mr. Henry Cobbett; the second in 1810, in the course of which year, belonging at the time to the Centaur he effected the rescue of a man named Thomas Moubray, who had fallen from the main-yard, while cruizing off Toulon; the third in 1811, when, running down the Trades at the rate of seven knots an hour, he leaped from the Africa after another seaman, James Walker, whom, however, his humane efforts failed to benefit, being left nearly two miles astern of the ship, and upwards of thirty minutes in the water before a boat arrived to his assistance; the fourth in the same year, when he saved one of the crew of the Aeolus; and the last in Feb. 1813, on 8 of which month, although his efforts were unfortunately not successful, he dashed from L’Espiègle in a heavy sea, in the hope of succouring a sailor, Jacob Small and was picked up a mile and a half distant from the sloop in an exhausted and nearly senseless state. His gallant and benevolent exertions could not, of course, do otherwise than elicit the warmest thanks of the Royal Humane Society with whose medal he was subsequently presented for his invention of a life-boat, described in its 47th Report.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1813, pp. 1606, 1856.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1810, p. 1488.
