Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p2.djvu/127

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captains of 1830.
113

the Prince of Wales 98, bearing the flag of Sir Robert Calder, where we find him assisting at the capture of two Spanish line-of-battle ships, July 22d, 1805[1]. His first commission bears date Aug. 30th, 1806; at which period he was appointed to the Sir Francis Drake 36, Captain James Haldane Tait, then on the East India station. He afterwards served under Captain Charles Foote, in the Wilhelmina and Piedmontaise frigates, but was at length obliged to return home for the recovery of his health, in the Powerful 74, Captain Charles James Johnstone, which ship arrived in England about June 1809.

From this period, Lieutenant Hope remained on shore until the month of September following, when he joined the Freija frigate, Captain John Hayes, fitting out for the Leeward Islands’ station. On the 18th of December in the same year, he assisted at the destruction of two French 44-gun frigates, laden with stores and provisions for the garrison of Guadaloupe, then about to be attacked by Sir Alexander Cochrane, in conjunction with a land force under Sir George Beckwith.

After the performance of the above service, and the demolition of the batteries in Ance la Barque[2]. Captain Hayes was employed as senior officer of a small squadron sent to blockade the N.W. side of Guadaloupe; and Lieutenant Hope commanded the boats of the said detachment at the capture and destruction of the sea batteries in that quarter. Among other official reports made by Captain Hayes, at this period, we find the following:–

H.M.S. Freija, Jan. 22d, 1810.
“Sir,– I have the honor to inform you, that on Wednesday the l7th instant, at 9 p.m., I captured, off Englishman’s Head, the Victor French schooner, of 150 tons, laden with coffee, sugar, and cotton: she came out of Bay Mahaut that evening at 5 o’clock. By her log, I found that other vessels were in the bay, and that Mahaut was a place of strength, having two batteries, one of three 24-pounders, the other of one 24-pounder; at the former a company, at the latter twenty-four chasseurs of colour. I