This officer entered the navy as a midshipman on board the Magnanime 44, Captain Isaac Schomberg, formerly Sir George Collier’s first Lieutenant in the Canada 74. He subsequently joined Nelson’s flag-ship, the Vanguard, in consequence of that great warrior having waited upon Lady Collier, at Bath, and expressed a particular wish to have him “under his wing.”
Mr. F. A. Collier’s commission as a Lieutenant bears date April 11, 1803, at which period we find him serving in the Osprey sloop, on the Leeward Islands’ station. On the 23d Mar. 1804, he distinguished himself by his “bravery and activity” in a most spirited action between that vessel and l’Egyptienne French privateer (formerly a republican frigate), mounting 36 guns, long 12 and 9-pounders, with a complement of 248 men. In this affair the Osprey had one man killed and 16 persons wounded; the enemy, whose ship escaped through superior sailing, 8 slain and 19 wounded[1].
The subject of this memoir was subsequently removed to the Centaur 74, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore Samuel Hood. In Mar. 1806, he commanded the Wolverene brig, on the same station, and captured le Tremeuse French national schooner, of 3 guns and 53 men. Toward the close of 1808, he was appointed acting Captain of the Circe frigate, and entrusted by Sir Alexander Cochrane with the command of a squadron stationed from the Diamond to the Pearl rocks, for the purpose of cutting off the supplies which the enemy were then endeavouring to throw into Martinique. A copy of his official letter reporting the destruction of la Cygne French brig of war, and two schooners laden with flour and provisions for the use of the blockaded garrison, will be found at p. 420 et seq. of this volume.
During the subsequent operations against Martinique, Captain Collier appears to have commanded the Star sloop of
- ↑ The Osprey, Captain George Younghusband, mounted 16 thirty-two-pounder carronades and 2 long sixes: her complement consisted of 120 officers, men, and boys. L’Egyptienne was taken by Captain Conway Shipley, on the 27th of the same month – see p. 392.
