for further service, she being very much hogged, and her beams, &c. shewing that she was in danger of falling to pieces; while the labour of her crew at the pumps barely sufficed to keep the water from gaining on them as she lay at anchor. In vain did her captain[1] represent her crazy state, and predict that she would be their coffin; the Rear-Admiral, whose pride it was to overcome difficulties, persisted in his purpose of taking her to the Cape of Good Hope, and many persons of the highest respectability felt happy in being allowed to take a passage with him.
The Blenheim sailed from Madras, Jan. 12, 1807, in company with the Java frigate, and the sloop recently commanded by Captain Troubridge; which vessel lost sight of her consorts near the Isle of Rodrigues, during a tremendous gale on the fifth of the following month, and there is reason to believe that they both foundered during the continuance of the storm.
Hearing of the distressed state in which his brother officer was last seen, and having a faint hope that he might have put into some port to repair his damages, Sir Edward Pellew directed the subject of this memoir, then commanding the Greyhound, to go in search of his worthy father, instructing him to proceed, in the first instance to Rodrigues, then to the Mauritius, and subsequently to Madagascar; Captain Troubridge’s anxious and melancholy cruise is thus described by an officer belonging to that frigate:
“Greyhound, Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope, Sept. 21, 1807.
“Dear Uncle,– * * * * In my last, from Madras, I informed you of our intended search after our much lamented friend. Sir Thomas. At the Isle of France, Captain Troubridge sent me in with a flag of truce; the enemy did not allow me to land, but in other respects they were very civil; giving us every information they possibly could, and sending us extracts of letters from different correspondents at Madagascar, Bourbon, and Rodrigues; together with a description of a piece of oak which had been picked up near Bourbon, and which appears to have been a large ship’s top-mast crosstree. On the second day after the Harrier parted from the Blenheim and Java, a line-of-battle ship was seen from the heights of Isle Bourbon, making- ↑ Austin Bissell, Esq.
