A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Randall, Daniel White
RANDALL. (Lieut., 1806. f-p., 17; h-p., 33.)
Daniel White Randall was born 2 Dec. 1784, at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire.
This officer entered the Navy, 20 March, 1797, as Midshipman, on board the Audacious 74, Capt. Davidge Gould, employed at first off Cadiz. After sharing in the battle of the Nile, 1 Aug. 1798, he was sent to Lisbon in Le Conquérant 74, one of the ships taken on the occasion. He subsequently, between Feb. 1799 and Oct. 1802, served in the Channel and North Sea in the Brilliant and Penelope frigates, both commanded by Capt. Hon. Henry Blackwood, Diamond 38, Capt. Edw. Grifflthj Irresistible 74, Capt. Wm. Bligh, and, as Admiralty- Midshipman, in the Fortunée frigate, Capt. John Ferrier. The Diamond was twice nearly lost – the first time by accidentally catching fire while preparing to engage two frigates whom she had been blockading in L’Orient; the Second, by striking upon a pointed rock, near Quiberon, a part of which, weighing about two tons, was found, on her return to Plymouth, sticking to her bottom, and was for many years preserved as a curiosity in the Dockyard. The Fortunée, while conveying 300 Hanoverian troops home, was cast away, in Oct. 1802, in a heavy gale, at the entrance of the Texel. Ten days after she had been dismasted, deserted, and all but buried in the sand, she was got off by dint of great exertion and restored to the service. In Nov. 1802 Mr. Randall was received on board La Loire 38, Capt. Fred. Levris Maitland, stationed on the coast of Ireland; and on 30 Sept. 1805, after having cruised for 18 months in the Channel, in the Moucheron 16, Capt. Jas. Hawes, and Montagu 74, Capt. Robt. Waller Otway, he was appointed Sub-Lieutenant of the Wrangler gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander John Bentinck Pettet, in the Downs. While in the latter vessel he received instructions to fit out and command a gun and rocket boat intended to co-operate in an attack (frustrated by adverse weather when on the eve of execution) on the Boulogne flotilla. He was made full Lieutenant 22 Jan. 1806, and subsequently appointed – 2 March, 1806, to the Avenger 18, Capt. Thos. White, at Newfoundland – 11 July, 1807, and 21 July, 1809, to the Espiègle 16 and Jalouse 18, both commanded by Capt. Henry Gage Morris on the Irish station – 17 July, 1812, after 15 months of half-pay, to the Christian VII. 80, Capt. Henry Lidgbird Ball, in the North Sea – and, in July, 1813, to the Echo sloop, Capt. Thos. Percival. In the Avenger, on his passage home with convoy in 1807 from Newfoundland, he witnessed the loss of Le Hazard of 14 guns and 50 men, a privateer, which, in running foul of the Avenger, was so much damaged that she went down head foremost. When Senior, in Jan. 1810, of the Jalouse, we find him gallantly assisting in the boats of that vessel and of the Phoenix frigate at the boarding and capture, under a heavy fire of grape and musketry, of Le Charles privateer of 14 guns and 90 men, after a row of four hours in the Atlantic, which had left the men-of-war hull down.[1] In 1813 he proceeded in the Echo to the West Indies in escort of a convoy of 283 sail, and in company with the Minden 74; Ister 36, and Talbot sloop. He was paid off in Sept. 1815, and has not been since afloat.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1810, p. 178.