squadron under Sir Robert Calder, to relieve him from that arduous and important duty.
Early in 1805, we find our officer serving in the North Sea, where he made several captures, and was occasionally entrusted by Lord Keith with the command of a squadron of observation stationed off the Texel. In the summer of the same year, he was placed under the orders of Lord Gardner on the Irish station, where he cruised with considerable success against the enemy’s armed vessels and merchantmen.
On the 2d Nov. in the same year, the Boadicea, being off Cape Finisterre, in company with the Dryad frigate, fell in with four French line-of-battle ships, which had escaped from the battle of Trafalgar under Rear-Admiral Dumanoir le Pelley. Hoping to lead the enemy into the track of a British squadron, he kept close to them, burning blue lights and firing rockets during the night; but owing to the weather becoming very thick, and the French ships altering their course, he unfortunately lost sight of them a short time after his signals had been perceived by Sir Richard Strachan, and he was thus prevented from sharing in the action which ended in their capture[1].
Some time after this event, Captain Maitland, when cruising between Capes Clear and Finisterre, discovered a French frigate, which he chased for two days and a night, and gained upon so considerably as at one time to have her water-line in view. Unluckily, however, he lost sight of her on the evening of the second day; when, in consequence of the increasing darkness and his proximity to the shore, he was reluctantly obliged to abandon the pursuit. On his return to Plymouth to refit, he was informed by the Port Admiral, Sir William Young, that intelligence had been received of a French frigate having run a-shore, with all sails set, on Isle de Groais, near l’Orient; and as the Boadicea, on hauling off from the land, had sounded in 52 fathoms, and was by her reckoning within a very short run of that island, there can be no doubt it was the same vessel she had chased.
Early in the year 1807, Captain Maitland was suddenly despatched from Cork, with the Topaze frigate under his orders, to Davis’s Straits, for the purpose of affording protection to
