have accompanied the grand fleet to the relief of Gibraltar in 1782; on which latter occasion he was first Lieutenant of the Courageux 74.
From 1786 till 1789, Lieutenant Barlow commanded the Barracouta cutter, and cruised with very great success against the smugglers. In 1790, he was promoted to the rank of Commander, and soon after appointed to the Childers brig of 16 guns, with orders to resume his former station on the coast of Cornwall. As this appointment was given him by the Admiralty, without any solicitation on the part of himself or his friends, we may reasonably conclude, it was in consequence of the favorable impression made on their Lordships’ minds by the long list of captures which he had transmitted to the Board, when superseded in the command of the Barracouta, at the expiration of the usual period of service. Whatever might have been their expectations as to his future exertions, it is certain they were not disappointed, Captain Barlow having captured several fine vessels laden with contraband goods, one of which was a new cutter of one hundred and fifty tons, with a cargo of one thousand ankers of spirits.
On the 2d Jan. 1793, a few weeks previous to the declaration of war by the French National Convention against Great Britain, the Childers, whilst reconnoitring the port of Brest, was fired at by a battery, from which she was not more than three-quarters of a mile distant. Imagining the national character of his vessel was doubted, Captain Barlow immediately hoisted his colours, whereupon the republicans displayed the French ensign, with a red pendant over it; and the signal was immediately answered by the adjacent forts, which opened a heavy cross fire upon the little brig; and she must inevitably have been destroyed, if a breeze springing up had not enabled her to stem the tide, by which she had been driven close to the entrance of the harbour. Fortunately, being so small an object, she was hit by only one shot, a 48-pounder, which struck one of her guns, and then split into three pieces, but providentially did not injure a man. This was the first act of decided hostility committed against Great Britain; and on the 15th of the following month, Captain Barlow, being off Gravelines, captured le Patriote privateer, the first armed vessel taken from the French republic.
Captain Barlow obtained post rank May 24, 1793; com-
