and Thomas Dundas, he passed his examination In 1805, and was immediately appointed a sub-lieutenant. On the 12th Oct. in the same year, a commission was signed by the Admiralty, appointing him to the Pompée 74, Captain Richard Dacres, in which ship he was present during the whole of the arduous and important services she performed whilst bearing the flag of Sir W. Sidney Smith, on the Mediterranean station. The defence of Gaeta; the reduction of Capri, on which occasion he commanded a division of the storming party ; the attack of fort Licosa, in which affair the Pompée sustained a loss of 42 killed and wounded ; the disarming of the coasts of Naples and Calabria, from the gulf of Salerno to Scylla; the destruction of a Turkish Squadron, during the memorable expedition against Constantinople, &c. &c. have already been mentioned in our first and succeeding volumes. We have likewise stated that the Pompée bore the flag of Vice -Admiral Stanhope, in the grand armament sent against Copenhagen; and we should here add, that her boats, under Lieutenant Roberts and his brother officers, were constantly employed in repelling the attacks made by the Danish flotilla on the left wing of the British army.
Lieutenant Roberts subsequently joined the Foudroyant 80, Sir W. Sidney Smith’s flag-ship, on the South American station, from whence he returned to England with that distinguished officer, in the Diana frigate, Aug. 7, 1809. His next appointment was to the Shearwater brig. Captain Edward Reynolds Sibly; and he appears to have been first lieutenant of that vessel, when she effected her escape from a division of the Toulon fleet, July 20, 1810[1]. He was shortly afterwards removed, at the particular request of Sir Samuel Hood, into the Hibernia 120; and on that lamented officer’s departure from the Mediterranean, in consequence of his nomination to the chief command in India, we find him joining the Centaur 74, Captain J. C. White; of which ship he was senior lieutenant during her active co-operation
