At Quiberon, Captain Ayscough was selected by Sir Edward Pellew, now Viscount Exmouth, to command a party of seamen, intended to assist at the storming the enemy’s works. Circumstances, however, arose which frustrated the plan of operations, and his orders were consequently countermanded at the very moment when he was about to proceed with scaling ladders and every thing necessary to carry them into execution. Off Cadiz, he met with a similar disappointment, owing to the mortality then raging in that city; but during the Egyptian campaign he did not want opportunities of distinguishing himself as a zealous and gallant officer, the sole charge of two important posts, at the entrance to the lakes, near Alexandria, being entrusted to him, and the force under his orders employed in a series of active and arduous services, which he continued to conduct in a very able and spirited manner, until obliged to quit the camp in consequence of catching the plague, by which dreadful malady he was deprived of the use of his hands and feet for a very considerable period.
Captain Ayscough received a gold medal for his services in Egypt, from whence he returned to England, Dec. 4, 1801. His next appointment was, about June 1803, to the Camel store-ship, in which we shortly afterwards find him proceeding to Jamaica, where he had not been long before he was nearly deprived of his life by a violent attack of yellow fever; but notwithstanding the additional shock his constitution then sustained, and the danger of a relapse if he remained in the West Indies, he declined the commander-in-chief’s offer to send him home for his recovery, being determined not to quit that station until he could attain the rank which he had ever fondly looked forward to, and constantly endeavoured to merit. That his reputation as an excellent officer was by this time well established, will be readily inferred from the handsome terms in which Sir John T. Duckworth spoke of him to his former distinguished Admiral:–
