to the Hound sloop, which vessel formed part of the squadron under Rear-Admiral (now Sir Richard G.) Keates, when that officer brought off the Marquis de la Romana and his troops, from the island of Funen[1]. The “indefatigable exertions” of every one employed in that “short but fatiguing service,” are duly acknowledged in the Rear-Admiral’s official report, dated off Sproe, in the Great Belt, Aug. 11, 1808.
On the 26th Oct. 1809, Captain Lockyer was appointed to the Sophie, a new 18-gun brig, in which vessel we find him very actively and successfully employed on the Halifax station, from the autumn of 1812 until his promotion to post rank, Mar. 29, 1815. During that period he captured and destroyed five heavy American gun-vessels; one armed national sloop; one privateer (the Pioneer) of 320 tons, 17 guns, and 70 men; another of 2 guns and 25 men; a merchant ship, 2 brigs, 10 schooners, and 2 sloops. He also assisted at the capture and destruction of numerous merchant vessels, whilst attached to the Chesapeake squadron.
The Sophie formed part of the small force under Captain the Hon. William Henry Percy, at the attack of Fort Bowyer, Sept. 15, 1814, on which occasion she sustained a loss of 6 men killed and 16 wounded[2]. She subsequently joined the expedition proceeding against New Orleans. The following is Sir Alexander Cochrane’s account of the capture of the above mentioned gun-boats and armed sloop:
“Having arrived off the Chandeleur Islands, on the 8th instant, Captain Gordon, of the Seahorse (which ship, with the Armide and Sophie, I had sent on, from off Pensacola, to the anchorage within Isle-au-Vaisseau), reported to me, that two gun-vessels, apparently large size sloops, of very light draught of water, had fired at the Armide, upon her way down from within the chain of small islands that run parallel to the coast from Mobile towards Lac Borgne, and having afterwards joined three others cruising in the lake, were then visible from his mast-head.
“The Bayou Catalan, at the head of Lac Borgne, being the contemplated point of debarkation[3], the distance from the inner anchorage of the frigates and troop-ships to the Bayou full 60 miles, and our princi-