Lord Colville retained the chief command on the Irish station until May 1825; and was advanced to the rank of Vice-Admiral on the 22d July, 1830.
SIR EDWARD HAMILTON, Bart. K.C.B.
Rear-Admiral of the Red.
(Vol. I. Part II. p. 829.)
On the 22d Jan. 1802, a court-martial assembled on board the Gladiator 44, in Portsmouth harbour, to try Sir Edward Hamilton, then captain of the Trent frigate, for seizing his gunner, Mr. William Bowman, up in the main rigging, on the 11th of that month.
The first lieutenant of the Trent stated in his evidence, that Sir Edward, on going out of the ship, between nine and ten o’clock in the forenoon, gave very particular orders to have the guns and carronades on the quarter-deck cleaned, which orders he repeated to the gunner; that Sir Edward returned about eleven o’clock, swore his orders had not been complied with, called the gunner a d__d old rascal, and instantly ordered him and his whole crew to be seized up in the rigging. The witness further stated, that the guns, carriages, &c. appeared to him to have been remarkably well cleaned. A rope-yarn, or part of a swab, lay on the muzzle of one carronade; the carriage of another was marked by the feet of the top-men ascending the shrouds, which he explained to Sir Edward, but to no purpose. These facts were corroborated by other officers and the quarter-master of the watch. It appeared that the gunner, an elderly man with a family, remained seized up about an hour and a half, and requested the surgeon, who was walking the quarter-deck, to represent to Sir Edward, that if he was not taken down he should faint:– that, in consequence of the surgeon’s representation, he was taken down and brought aft, where he actually fainted; that he requested Sir Edward repeatedly, if culpable, to try him by a court-martial, and, in pity to his age and infirmities, not to seize him up. This transac-
