told that they were not malefactors, or could not so esteem themselves . In a few hours they were sentenced to the death they had so long succeeded in parrying; and in the last instant of life they manifested the same heroic bearing which has left in the minds of all who saw them a recollection glowing and full of admiration for the last of Fribourg’a regiment[1].”
The Melpomene afterwards proceeded up the Adriatic, where her boats, occasionally commanded by Lieutenant Badcock, captured several merchant vessels, and continually harassed the enemy’s coasting trade. She returned to England, with Lord Pembroke and his suite, passengers from Trieste, in Nov. 1807.
Mr. Badcock’s next appointment was to the Swiftsure 74, bearing the flag of Sir John B. Warren, under whom he served on the Halifax station until Feb. 1811. Whilst there, and doing duty as first lieutenant, he met with a very serious accident. All sail having been made in chase, he had given up the charge of the quarter-deck, and gone forward to look at the object of pursuit, when the jib flapped, and one of the sheets, coming in with a sudden jerk, broke his jaw and knocked out five teeth. About the same period. Captain Conn, of the Swiftsure, a much respected and most valuable officer, jumped overboard in a fit of derangement, and perished. This sad catastrophe occurred off the Bermudas, May 4, 1810.
On his return from America, Lieutenant Badcock was ordered to Lisbon, on promotion; and he had not been long there before Admiral Berkeley gave him the command of the Tritona hospital-ship, with permission to visit his brother, an officer in the 14th light dragoons, attached to Lord Wellington’s army. This indulgence afforded him an opportunity of witnessing a siege by land, as Badajos was taken during the time he remained with that distinguished corps: he also accompanied his brother nearly over the Alemtajo, and into Estramadura. On the 11th June, 1812, he received an order to act as commander of the Brune 38, in the channel
- ↑ About 55 were executed.
