Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p2.djvu/286

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702
REAR-ADMIRALS OF THE WHITE.

management of her crew, was the first ship that proceeded to sea after its suppression; a circumstance which will not appear the less creditable to our officer, when we state that she was known to be under orders for the West Indies, a station at that period particularly unhealthy, and universally dreaded. Subsequent to her return from thence, she cruized with considerable success in the British Channel, and among other vessels captured l’Aurore French corvette, of 16 guns; l’Actif privateer, of 16 guns and 137 men; le Diable a Quatre, of 16 guns and 150 men; and an armed schooner laden with coffee. She also retook a valuable merchant vessel from New York bound to London. Towards the latter end of the war, we find her employed off Cadiz, under the orders of Sir James Saumarez; and she appears to have taken a part in the action with the combined squadrons of France and Spain, July 13, 1801[1].

On the renewal of hostilities, in 1803, Captain Lukin was appointed to the Doris frigate. He afterwards commanded in succession the Thunderer, Gibraltar, and Mars, ships of the line, the latter of which was for some time stationed off Rochefort, under the late Sir Samuel Hood, and bore a very conspicuous part at the capture of four heavy French frigates, full of troops, Sept. 25, 1806[2]. The ships which struck to her on that occasion were la Gloire, of 46 guns, and l’Indefatigable, 44. In the autumn of 1807, she accompanied the expedition sent against Copenhagen[3]; and after the reduction of that place, equipped and escorted to England the Danish ship Fyen, of 74 guns.

Some time after this event, an attack was meditated upon Norway, and the command of the naval and military forces to be employed given to Rear-Admiral Keats and Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, both of whom, in consequence of Captain Lukin having handsomely offered his ship for that purpose, were conveyed by him to Sweden. The enterprise, as is well known, was soon abandoned, in consequence of the disastrous and menacing aspect of affairs in the latter kingdom, which was not only rent by internal discords, but threatened from without by the combined armies of Russia, France,