Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/238

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POST-CAPTAINS OF 1819.
223

and continued in her until his promotion to the rank of lieutenant, Aug. 8, 1808. During the last four years of the war with France, he served under Captain the Hon. Henry Duncan, in the Imperieuse 38, on the Mediterranean station. We have before stated that he received a wound on the 27th June, 1812, while assisting at the destruction of the enemy’s batteries and shipping at Languilla and Alassio, in the gulf of Genoa[1]. The official account of that service has been given at p. 217.

Captain Walpole’s commission as commander bears date June 15, 1814[2]. His next appointments were, May 13, 1815, to the Thames 38, armed en flûte, which ship he re-commissioned in Sept. following; and Feb. 10, 1818, to the Curlew 18, fitting for the East India station.

In 1819, the Bombay government fitted out an expedition to destroy the pirates of the Persian Gulf, who, forgetting the chastisement inflicted on them by Captain Wainwright and Lieutenant-colonel Smith, in Nov. 1809[3], had begun again to follow their former atrocious practices. The command of the troops was entrusted to Major-general Sir William Grant Keir, Knt. K.M.T.; and the naval part was placed under the directions of Captain Francis Augustus Collier, C.B. whose force consisted of his own ship, the Liverpool 50; the Eden 26, Captain Francis Erskine Loch; the Curlew sloop, Captain Walpole; several of the Hon. Company’s cruisers; and a number of gun and mortar-boats. The following is an outline of the operations before Ras-al-Khyma, by an officer of the squadron:

“On the 2nd December, the expedition cast anchor off Ras-al-Khyma. On the passage thither, we had been joined by several frigates belonging to his Highness the Imaum of Muscat. At 4 o’clock in the morning of the 4th, the first division of troops effected a landing two miles S.W. of the place. The gun-boats and an armed pinnace covered the debarkation: no opposition was made. Captain Loch acted as beach-master, and Captain Walpole commanded the flotilla. The men immediately commenced the formation of a camp. During the day, the remainder of the army landed,