of 1783, Major of the Royal Cornwall Fencible Dragoons.
This officer entered the Navy, in 1797, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Attack gun-vessel, in which, and in the Forester and Nimble, commanded by Lieuts. Hinton, Allen, arid Lloyd, he served on the Dartmouth station, until received as Midshipman, in Sept. 1799, into the Edgar 74, under the orders of his patron, Capt. Edw. Buller, whom, in the spring of 1801, he accompanied into the Achille 74, attached, as had been the Edgar, to the force in the Channel. In April, 1803, having passed some months in the Naiad frigate, Capt. Jas. Wallis, he again joined Capt. Buller on board the Malta 80. In that ship, of which he was created a Lieutenant 1 May, 1804, he fought in Sir Robt. Calder’s action with the combined fleets oif Cape Finisterre 22 July, 1805. In June and Oct. 1807 he became Flag-Lieutenant, in the Queen 98 and Canopus 80, to Rear-Admiral Geo. Martin, on the Mediterranean station; where, 12 Oct. 1809, he was ordered to act as Commander of the Redwing 18. In the following Dec, finding that he had been officially promoted to the command of the Pilot brig of 18 guns, by a commission bearing date 26 of the preceding Aug., he returned to England, and in April, 1810, joined that vessel at Portsmouth. Returning soon with convoy to the Mediterranean, he commenced a series of operations against the enemy along the Italian shores, unsurpassed for activity and success, the principal of which we shall now proceed to record. His first act was the destruction, when in company with the Ortenzia schooner, of five out of a convoy of 51 sail, protected, near the town of St. Luoido, on the coast of Calabria, by a battery, 16 armed vessels, and a body of musketeers, whose fire killed 3 of the British. This event took place 24 June, 1810; and on 8 of the ensuing month we find him earning the high admiration of Rear-Admiral Martin by the manner in which he took, near the same place, and destroyed two gun-boats, three armed scampavias, and 17 sail of transport-vessels, laden with stores and ammunition for Murat’s army at Scylla. Seventeen days afterwards, being in company with the Thames 32 and Weasel 18, the zeal and gallantry of Capt. Nicolas were again displayed at the capture and destruction, under the batteries of Amantea, of a convoy of 31 vessels, also laden for the army of Murat, together with seven large gun-boats and five scampavias; a service which procured him the acknowledgments as well of the Admiralty as of his Commander-in-Chief.[1] Independently of many gallant exploits performed by her boats at Monasteracci, Riacci, Strongoli, Castellar,[2] Policastro,[3] and other places, in which she herself more or less participated, the Pilot, in company with the Thames 32, Capt. Chas. Napier, came into action, 4 April, 1812, with a Neapolitan flotilla, consisting of a brig, three schooners, and 14 gun-vessels, whom an unfortunate calm enabled to escape under the strong batteries of Salerno. On 14 of the ensuing month the two ships attacked the port of Sapri, and, after having battered for two hours its defences (a strong battery and tower mounting 2 32-pounders), compelled it to surrender at discretion. The support afforded by Capt. Nicolas on the occasion was great; he flanked the battery in a most judicious manner, and afterwards commanded the launching of 28 vessels laden with oil.[4] In June, 1812, uniting with the Euryalus 36 and Cephalus 18, the Pilot suffered severely in her sails and rigging while engaged in a five hours’ attempt to destroy a large convoy at Dino, protected by three batteries, several gun-boats, and a large body of troops. Between April, 1810, and July, 1812, she effected, we may add, the unassisted capture, with a loss of but 8 of her people killed and 24 wounded, of not less than 130 of the enemy’s vessels. In the course of the month last mentioned she was ordered to the Adriatic; and while next cruizing between Sicily and the African coast, she succeeded in taking, among other prizes, the French armed-brig Harp, with a valuable cargo on board, at the close of a long and anxious chase, 4 June, 1813. At the commencement of the peace of 1814 her Commander was sent by Lord Exmouth to Murat, then King of Naples, to inquire into a supposed insult offered by a Neapolitan frigate to H.M. sloop Pylades; which, however, in a personal interview with Joachim, was proved to him to have originated in mistake. Towards the close of 1814, having returned with convoy to England, Capt. Nicolas applied to the Admiralty for leave to have the Pilot altered agreeably to a plan he had formed, by which a shot-hole between wind and water, in any part of the ship, could be immediately stopped, an object hitherto impracticable from the arrangements of the bread and store rooms. His request was at once granted, and the suggestions he had made ordered to be carried out in regard to all the 18-gun brigs then under repair at Portsmouth. On the escape of Napoleon Buonaparte from Elba, Capt. Nicolas was again sent to the Mediterranean, where he was intrusted with the important duty of opening a communication with Marseilles and the coast adjacent, for the purpose of assuring those who adhered to the royal cause of the assistance of Great Britain. On 17 June, 1815, being off Cape Corse, he achieved an exploit of much gallantry in effecting the defeat of the French corvette Légère of 28 guns; which vessel made off at the end of a close and obstinate combat of nearly two hours, attended with a loss to herself of 22 men killed and 79 wounded, and to the British, with damage to their sails and rigging, of 1 man killed and 15 wounded. To mark the sense they entertained of his conduct on the occasion, the Admiralty promoted Capt. Nicolas to Post-rank by a commission dated 26 Aug. 1815. On 4 of the preceding June he had formed one of the six Commanders nominated to the C.B. on the extension of the order of the Bath. In the following Oct. he was presented, in compliment to his distinguished services, with the Small Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit by the King of the Two Sicilies; who, on 26 April, 1816, as an additional mark of favour, conferred on him the Cross of a Knight Commander of the same Order. After accompanying Lord Exmouth on his visits to Algiers and Tunis, Capt. Nicolas returned to England, and, in July, 1816, was paid off. During the time he had been employed in the Mediterranean he had frequently attracted the notice of the Admiralty by the valuable additions he had made to hydrographic knowledge. Obtaining command, 5 Jan. 1820, of the Egeria 28, Capt. Nicolas was forthwith despatched to Newfoundland, where it was his lot for some months to discharge the anomalous duties of a naval surrogate. A better proof of the satisfactory manner in which he acquitted himself cannot be adduced than the fact that out of more than a thousand cases in which he adjudicated at St. John and Harbour Grace only three appeals were made, and in each of these his decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court. A gratifying testimony, too, of the general esteem in which he was held, was afforded him by the spontaneous manner in which the chief inhabitants of the latter place came forward, on the publication of a libel against him, and subscribed the sum of 400l. towards the conviction of the offender. In May, 1822, he returned to England; and in Nov. of that year, in consequence of a dispute which had arisen between the keelmen and the shipmasters and owners at Newcastle, he was deputed with a small squadron to the river Tyne to aid the civil power in subduing the alarming insubordination displayed. By a union of firmness, decision, and forbearance, he succeeded in six weeks, without the occurrence of a single casualty, in fully restoring order; and in such a manner as to elicit the marked approbation of the Mayor, Magistrates and merchants belonging to the town of Newcastle, of the Commander-in-Chief at the Nore, Sir Benj. Hallowell, and of the present Sir Robt. Peel, then Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Egeria being put out of commission in the early part of 1823, Capt. Nicolas, notwithstanding many
