as a volunteer. It is sufficient to say, that in three months from the period of their enrolment, his patriotic companions were armed, accoutred, and sufficiently disciplined to perform any service that might be required of them.
Agents.– Messrs. Cooke, Halford, and Son.
GEORGE SAYER, Esq
A Companion of the most Honorable Military Order of the Bath.
[Post-Captain of 1801.]
This officer is a native of Deal in Kent, where his father resided as Collector of the Customs upwards of thirty years. He entered the service at an early age as a Midshipman on board the Phoenix frigate, commanded by the late Captain George Anson Byron, with whom he proceeded to the East Indies, in company with a squadron under Commodore Cornwallis.
In 1790 and 1791, Mr. Sayer served on shore with a body of seamen and marines, at the reduction of Tippoo Saib’s forts, and other possessions on the Malabar coast. He was also employed on various boat services in co-operation with the army; and bore a part in the action between the Phoenix and la Resolu, an account of which will be found under the head of Admiral Sir Richard J. Strachan, who commanded the Phoenix on that occasion[1].
iThe Phoenix returned to England in July 1793, and Mr. Sayer was soon after made a Lieutenant into the Carysfort, a 9-pounder frigate, rated at 28 guns, and commanded by the present Sir Francis Laforey. In this ship he assisted at the capture of the Castor French frigate, mounting 26 long twelves and six 6-pounders[errata 1] after a close action of an hour and a quarter, off Brest, May 29, 1794[2].
From this period, Mr. Sayer served as Captain Laforey’s first Lieutenant in the Carysfort, Beaulieu frigate, and Ganges 74, till March 1796, when he was promoted by that officer’s father to the rank of Commander, and appointed to the Lacedaemonian sloop of war on the Leeward Islands station; in which vessel he was present at the capture of St. Lucia by the military and naval forces under Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, and Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh C. Christian[3].
- ↑ Correction: and six 6-pounders should be amended to , six 6-pounders and 4 carronades
