then commanded by Captain Christopher Laroche, but afterwards by Captain William Brown, in Sir Robert Calder’s action with the combined fleets of France and Spain; by Lieutenant John Pilfold, at the memorable battle of Trafalgar; and by Captain the Hon. Henry Blackwood, in the expedition against Constantinople. The destruction of that ship by fire, in the night of Feb. 14th, 1807, has been noticed in p. 648 et seq. of Vol. I. Part II.
During the subsequent operations of the squadron under Sir John T. Duckworth, Lieutenant Rowe served as a volunteer on board the Windsor Castle 98, Captain Charles Boyles, which ship, when returning through the Dardanelles, was struck by several marble shot of great size, one in particular measuring six feet eleven inches in circumference: her total loss, however, did not exceed four men killed, and twenty, including Mr. William Jones, master’s-mate, wounded.
Lieutenant Rowe’s next appointment was to the Valiant 74, Captain James Young, then about to sail for Copenhagen, under the orders of Admiral Gambier. During the siege of that capital, he was placed in command of the Charles armed transport, attached to the advanced squadron, which vessel was blown up by a shell pitching into her magazine, whilst engaged with the Danish flotilla and land batteries, Aug. 31st, 1807. On this unfortunate occasion, Lieutenant Rowe had his leg shattered above the knee, his collar-bone broken, his body dreadfully lacerated, and his head and face so violently contused, as to be for some time bereft of sight. Thus mangled, he fell into the sea at a considerable distance from the spot where the explosion took place, and was in the act of sinking when a seaman caught hold of his hair and dragged him into a boat belonging to the Thunder bomb, on board of which vessel he underwent immediate amputation: the other sufferers by the same unlucky event were thirty in number, of whom the master of the transport and nine men were killed, and a mate of the Valiant (named Philip Tomlinson) and nineteen men wounded, the former mortally.
