Vengeur 74, Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, C.B. which ship conveyed Lord Beresford from Rio Janeiro to the river Tagus, and the King of the Two Sicilies from Naples to Leghorn, in the year 1820[1].
On Sir Home Popham’s return from the naval command at Jamaica, a short time previous to his demise, the commander’s commission in his gift was bestowed upon the subject of this sketch, and bears date Sept. 9th, 1820. In the following year, being then unemployed, he joined, as a private, the Dumfries-shire yeomanry cavalry, in which respectable corps he is now a captain. On the 28th Feb. 1823, he was appointed to the Eclair sloop, fitting out at Deptford, for the South American station.
While employed in this vessel, affording protection to British property on the north coast of Brazil, the country being then in a very unsettled state. Captain Johnstone differed in opinion with his Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Pará, as to the line of conduct that should be taken by the English residents, and requested that they would forthwith withdraw their names from a cavalry corps which had been formed during the recent disturbances in the province; urging the nature of his orders, which required him to discountenance any thing but the strictest neutrality. He afterwards received a note from Mr. Dickenson, the Vice-Consul, wherein the latter expressed himself as follows: – “I have much satisfaction in assuring you, that the British merchants have with alacrity fully adopted your advice, although not consonant with their individual opinions.” – At a subsequent period, he had the satisfaction to receive an official letter from the Admiralty, conveying Mr. Secretary Canning’s approbation of his conduct.
In January, 1824, the house of Mr. Hesketh, an English merchant at Maranham, and brother to the British Vice-Consul there, was forcibly entered, and searched for arms, Captain Johnstone, thinking a shew of force, by moving the Eclair, might have the effect of producing greater circum-
