Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/295

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
POST CAPTAINS OF 1825.
277

he sailed for Barbadoes, as passenger on board the Swiftsure 74, Captain William Henry Webley, and there joined the flag-ship of Sir Philip C. Durham, by whom he was promoted to the command of the Muros sloop, April 25th, 1815.

During the subsequent operations against Guadaloupe, Captain Gosling appears to have been employed in covering the debarkation of some troops near Baillif, in the face of a very large force; and on the following day (Aug. 10th, 1815) he ran into Ance la Barque, anchored within grape range of the shore, and succeeded in bringing out a large merchant ship and a sloop, the former mounting two 6-pounders, and both commanded by Buonapartists.

His next appointment was, July 15th, 1818, to the Ontario sloop, fitting out for the Jamaica station. On the 17th of Dec. 1819, being then on a cruise off Cuba, he drove ashore and captured, after a long and anxious chase amongst the Colorados, a piratical schooner, formerly the Veloy, of Jamaica; and retook a French merchant brig, from Marseilles bound to the Havannah, the cargo of which had been thrown overboard in order to make room for the more valuable plunder taken from two other prizes. One of these, a brig belonging to Bremen, was also rescued from the hands of the miscreants by Captain Gosling ; but the other, a Spanish trading schooner, whose crew they had deliberately massacred, upset while endeavouring to get round the above shoals, and all on board perished. In obtaining possession of the French vessel, Lieutenant Whitworth Lloyd, who commanded the boats despatched for that purpose, and two of his men, were wounded; the officers employed under his orders were Lieutenant William Maxwell and Mr. Henry Gosling, admiralty midshipmen, who succeeded in capturing sixteen of the piratical gang.

In June, 1820, Captain Gosling was obliged to get invalided, and come home for the recovery of his health. On the 4th of Oct. 1813, he was appointed to the Harrier 18, fitting out for the Irish station, where, in company with the Pelorus sloop, he captured a smuggling lugger, about the beginning of Oct. 1824. His promotion to the rank of captain took place Aug. 16th, 1825.