Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/216

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POST CAPTAINS OF 1825.
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County; and his descendant is now, by the extinction of the direct line of Courtstown, the head of this family.

Most of the foregoing genealogical particulars are extracted from “Memoirs op the Grace Family,” (printed for private distribution) by Sheffield Grace, Esq., L.L.D,, F.S.A., Member of the Hon. Society of Lincoln’s Inn, and brother to the subject of the following memoir.

Mr. Percy Grace is the third and youngest son of the late Richard Grace, of Boley, Esq., M.P.[1], {who, as a barrister-at-law, undertook the very important, confidential, and complicated trust, of singly managing, and extricating from litigation, the great Chandos estates in Ireland, vested in the late Duchess, to whom he was nearly allied), by his third cousin, Jane, youngest daughter of the Hon. John Evans, and granddaughter of the first Lord Carbery[2].

He entered the royal navy at an unusually early age; and being placed under the care of Captain (afterwards Sir Thomas Francis) Fremantle, was a youngster on board the Ganges 74, commanded by that officer, at the sanguinary battle of Copenhagen, April 2d, 1801[3].

After serving for nearly four years, in different ships, on the Baltic, North Sea, Channel, West India, Halifax, and Irish stations, Mr. Grace joined the Greyhound frigate Captain Charles Elphinstone, then employed off Cherbourgh, but subsequently ordered to the East Indies. Soon after his arrival there, in Dec. 1805, he was entrusted with the charge of a large recaptured ship, and sent in her to Calcutta. On his return from thence to Pulo-Penang, he was received on board the Blenheim 74, bearing the flag of Sir Thomas

  1. Grandson of the above mentioned Michael Grace, of Gracefield.
  2. Michael Grace, of Gracefield, inherited, as co-heir at law, the undevised estates of the Sheffield family, in the counties of Sussex, Middlesex, and York. (Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, 3d edit. p. 329.) The Duchess of Chandos was sister to Richard Grace Gamon, of Minchenden, co. Middlesex, Esq., M.P. for Winchester more than thirty years, who was created a Baronet in April, 1795, with remainder to his cousin and nearest male relative, Richard Grace of Boley, M.P
  3. See Vol. I. Part I. p. 365, et seq.