course of the same year an attack was meditated upon the city of Cadiz, and Captain Hope nominated to the command of a battalion of seamen, to be landed with the army; but in consequence of the representations which were made by the Spanish Governor of the miserable situation of the inhabitants, who were then suffering beneath a violent epidemic disease, the enterprise was abandoned, and the fleet returned to Gibraltar.
In the month of December, Captain Hope received Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, with his staff, on board the Kent, at Gibraltar, and conveyed him from thence to Egypt. He was subsequently employed in the blockade of Alexandria; and remained upon that station till Cairo surrendered to the British arms[1]. As the service then required the Kent to be appropriated to the flag of Sir Richard Bickerton, and as Captain Hope was not disposed to serve under a Flag-Officer, he was allowed to return to Europe; but previously to his departure, the Commander-in-Chief was pleased, in compliment to his professional merit, to offer him the situation of First Captain of the Fleet. Particular circumstances, however, with which we are unacquainted, induced him to decline the proposal.
A general peace soon afterwards took place; in consequence of which Captain Hope remained on half-pay until the renewal of hostilities, in the spring of 1804; when he was appointed to the Atlas, of 74 guns, originally a 3-decker, fitting at Chatham, and afterwards employed off the Texel. This command he held for about three months, at the expiration of which time he was obliged, from ill health, to come on shore; and we find no farther mention of him till early in 1807, when he was called on to take a seat at the Board of Admiralty, which he vacated in the year 1809. He was nominated a Colonel of Royal Marines, Aug. 1, 1811; advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, Aug. 12, 1812; appointed Commander-in-Chief at Leith, in Nov. 1813; created a K.C.B. Jan. 2, 1815; and re-appointed to the chief command on the
