crew, having died since her departure from the West Indies. This appointment, gave rise to an official correspondence, which terminated in the supercession by the Admiralty, of all the officers whom the commanders-in-chief on the Halifax and Jamaica stations, each claiming the patronage, had intended to raise to superior ranks[1]. The subject of this memoir was consequently obliged to return to the Bellette, after acting as captain of the Tamar for six months, during which period he had restored her to a state of efficiency, and captured, near the island of St. Domingo, a large piratical brig, pierced for 20 guns, with forged warlike commissions from all the different independent states of South America, and a crew of 98 men, desperadoes of every nation. While employed on the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the Bellette captured about twenty vessels of different descriptions, detected in the act of violating the above treaty and the existing revenue laws. She was paid off at Plymouth, about Christmas, 1821.
Captain Pechell is the author of “A Visit to the Capital and the Chief Ports of St. Domingo, in 1821.” He obtained post rank, Dec. 26, 1822 ; married, Aug. 1, 1826, the Hon. Katherine Annabella, daughter of Lord De La Zouche ; and took his seat as a Justice of the Peace for Sussex, in July, 1827.
Agent.– J. Copland, Esq.
ALEXANDER BARKCLAY BRANCH, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1822.]
Is descended from an ancient Scotch family, whose over zeal in what they considered a just cause, and conscientious loyalty, compelled them to fly from North Britain during the troubles there, first seeking an asylum in France, and ultimately settling at the island of Barbadoes, where his mother died in giving birth to him, and his father on the following day ; both deaths occasioned by the dreadful effects of a hurricane, in, we believe, the year 1784.
