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1842—in the Mediterranean, at Beyrout, and Tortosa, St. Jean d'Acre; 1842 to 1850—on the East Indies and China Station, and especially in command of a squadron for the suppression of piracy; and then in the operations in the Black Sea at Sebastopol, Kertch, and Kinburn.
He had in 1859 fulfilled the time which the Queen's Regulations specified as necessary to qualify him for his flag on the active list.[1] He therefore had a positive certainty of rising, if he lived, to the highest ranks of his profession. On his return to England in 1859 he offered himself for employment. The Duke of Somerset, then First Lord of the Admiralty, requested him to serve as one of a Royal Commission to inquire into Greenwich Hospital—a duty which he concluded with Sir W. Hutt and Mr. Ingham in 1860.
In January, 1861, the Duke of Somerset, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, requested him to be Chairman of a Committee to inquire into the use of iron for defensive purposes. This duty continued until October, 1864, involving labour of an unusual character and constant
- ↑ 2. To qualify a Captain, whose seniority brings him in turn for advancement, for the Active List of Flag Officers, he must have commanded one or more of Her Majesty's Ships, as Captain, four complete years during War, or six complete years during Peace, or five complete years during War and Peace combined.
A Captain shall be allowed to reckon as time served at Sea, the period during which he may have been employed afloat in that capacity on surveying or other duties, provided that, during such period, he shall actually have had the charge and command of some Surveying Ship or other sea-going Vessel, or that he shall have been borne for full-pay on the books of one of Her Majesty's Ships in Commission. And the Captains-Superintendent of Her Majesty's Dockyards shall be allowed to reckon as time served at Sea, the period during which they may be so employed.—Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, chap, vii., art. 2.
