the latter year, he received four wounds, while attempting to burn an armed felucca, under Cape del Arme. On the 12th Oct. 1811, he obtained the royal authority to accept and wear the insignia of K.F.M. which His Sicilian Majesty had been pleased to confer upon him, “as a testimony of his royal approbation of the great courage and intrepidity displayed by him in various actions with the enemy’s vessels near Messina.” About the same period, he was appointed to the Ganymede 26, Captain John Brett Purvis; and at the close of the war, we find him in the Minstrel 20, Captain Robert Mitford, on the Mediterranean station. His promotion to the rank of commander took place on the 15th June, 1814.
THOMAS DICKINSON (b), Esq.
[Commander.]
Obtained his first commission in Aug. 1806; and was severely wounded while serving as senior lieutenant of the Andromache frigate. Captain George Tobin, at the capture of la Trave, French 44, in Oct. 1813[1]. The estimation in which he was held by his gallant captain, was thus expressed in that officer’s official letter, but never reached publicity:
“The zeal and professional talents of Mr. Dickinson I have long known, and endeavoured to appreciate; and on all occasions have sought his clear and comprehensive counsel; nor is it possible that I can ever cease to cherish a remembrance of it with the warmest gratitude.”
And in a private letter to Viscount Melville, after stating the sufferings of Lieutenant Dickinson, Captain Tobin observes:
“Our affair with la Trave (the account of which I endeavoured to give as succinctly, and with as much humility as possible) will doubtless soon pass by. If I was at all prolix, it was in praising those to whom I shall ever be indebted, which, of all others, is the highest gratification a commander can feel; and in a warfare like the present, where the foe in general remain secure in port, too many opportunities do not offer for our bestowing it.
