Lieutenant Vansittart was promoted to the rank of Commander in the Hermes sloop of war, about Aug. 1798; removed into the Bonetta about Oct. following; and during the ensuing year, was employed convoying the trade to and from Newfoundland and America, In 1800, he captured several of the enemy’s armed vessels on the Jamaica station, where he obtained post rank in the Abergavenny of 54 guns. He subsequently commanded the Thunderer 74, and Magicienne frigate; the former returned to Europe with the squadron under Sir Robert Calder, who had gone to the West Indies in pursuit of the French fleet under M. Gantheaume; the latter was employed conveying a number of disbanded Dutch troops from Lymington and Jersey, to. the Texel and Helvoetsluys, after the peace of Amiens. His post commission bears date Feb. 3, 1801.
At the renewal of the war in 1803, Captain Vansittart commissioned the Fortunée frigate, and during the remainder of the year we find him blockading the rivers Elbe and Weser, and cruising off Boulogne. On the 2d Feb. 1804, he sailed for the Jamaica station, where he was most actively employed upwards of four years; during which, and the two years previously spent there, he had three severe attacks of the yellow fever[1].
In the summer of 1806, Captain Vansittart sailed for England, in company with the Surveillante frigate, Hercule 74, an armed schooner, and a large fleet of merchantmen. When off the Havannah, a number of Spanish vessels were discovered, under the protection of a 74-gun ship and two gun-boats. The Fortunée was immediately detached in pursuit by signal from the senior officer, Captain (now Rear-Admiral) John Bligh, and assisted by the schooner, succeeded in capturing the gunboats, and upwards of twenty sail, deeply laden with sugar, &c.
- ↑ When the yellow fever made its appearance on board the Fortunée, Captain Vansittart was about to return to Jamaica from a cruise off the Havannah. Six men having died before he cleared the Gulf of Florida, he pushed for the Bermudas, and landed all the sick on one of those islands, which being uninhabited was humanely lent to him for that purpose by Mr. Tucker, the President (the Governor being absent). The fever went through the whole of his crew, but fortunately not a man died of that disorder from the time of his arrival there, nor indeed during the remainder of his stay in the West Indies.
