Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/326

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308
POST-CAPTAINS OF 1821.

one half of the Raven’s guns. When refitted, he was ordered to join the expedition collecting in the West Indies for the purpose of attacking New Orleans; but on his arrival at Barbadoes, he was detained by the commander-in-chief at the Leeward Islands, and sent down to Trinidad, where he received the public thanks of Sir Ralph Woodford, governor of that island, for his successful exertions in favor of British merchants trading to the Spanish Main, who, through him, obtained some exclusive and important privileges.

While in charge of the Gulf of Paria, and holding an intercourse with South America, he also exerted himself most strenuously in the cause of humanity, as well as of his country’s commerce, by constantly endeavouring to save the effusion of blood, and exacting, both from the independents and the royalists, promises, which he forced them strictly to observe, that no executions, on account of political enmities, should take place while a British pendant was flying at any of their anchorages. The scene which he witnessed on his first visit to the Spanish main was of the most terrific description; the beach being literally covered with the bodies of respectable persons of both parties, whose respective slaves had been encouraged to murder them with the knife, in cold blood.

The Raven returned home without the loss of a single person by yellow fever, and was paid off at Woolwich, in Sept. 1815; from which period, notwithstanding[errata 1] oft-repeated applications for employment. Captain Lloyd remained on half-pay till Aug. 9th, 1820, when he received an appointment to the Esk of 20 guns. Some time previous to this, he had presented a memorial to the Admiralty, recapitulating his long and arduous services, requesting a share of the favorable consideration so liberally awarded in other cases of just claims, and accompanied by the following documents, to prove that his pretensions to superior rank were not exaggerated.

(I.)

Admiralty House, Cove of Cork, Oct. 15, 1819.
“My dear Sir,– If any statement of your services while under[errata 2] my command, or any expression of my approbation of your conduct, can at all assist in forwarding your views of promotion, I feel that you have a

Errata:

  1. Correction: notwithstanding should be amended to notwithstanding his
  2. Correction: while under should be amended to while you were under