On the 24th Nov. 1808, the Goree captured le General Villaret, French ship letter of marque, of 8 guns and 32 men, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and cotton. She subsequently assisted at the reduction of Martinique, from whence Captain Spear returned to England with Sir Alexander Cochrane’s official account of that conquest, in which we find the Rear-Admiral referring the Lords of the Admiralty to him for any other information, and describing him as “an old and deserving Commander.” He arrived in London April 12, 1809, and was promoted to post rank on the following day.
Captain Spear subsequently commanded the Royal Sovereign of 100 guns, and Temeraire 98; the former for nearly twelve months, as a private ship, off Toulon, under the orders of Sir Charles Cotton, Bart.; and the latter bearing the flag of his worthy friend Rear-Admiral Pickmore, third in command of the Mediterranean fleet. His appointments to those ships took place in April, 1810, and Mar. 1811[1].
On the 7th Aug. 1811, the British fleet anchored in Hieres bay, leaving a squadron of observation off Cape Sicie. On the 13th, when getting under weigh, the wind fell, and the Temeraire drifted close to a heavy battery, at the N.E. end of Porquerolle. The second shot fired by the enemy (a 36-pounder) came in on the gangway, where Captain Spear was conversing with the master, Mr. Robert Duncan, took off one of that officer’s legs and the fleshy part of the other, then passed through the quarter-deck, and dismounted one of the main-deck guns on the opposite side. Without waiting for a signal from Sir Edward Pellew, then chief in command, the Temeraire immediately opened a tremendous fire, which had such an effect on the Frenchmen’s nerves that, although some time elapsed before she could be towed out of range, not another shot struck her. When conveyed to the cockpit, Mr. Duncan would not suffer the surgeon to perform the neces-
- ↑ Vice-Admiral Pickmore, Governor of Newfoundland, died at St. John’s, Feb. 24, 1818. “His natural kindness of heart, while it smoothed his own course down the rugged stream of life, endeared him to his private friends, and fixed the esteem and attachment of those engaged with him in the arduous duties of his profession.” See Nav. Chron. vol. xxxix. p. 344.
