nant under my flag; and that in every situation you conducted yourself like a zealous and active officer. You have my best wishes, and I am, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
“To Captain Edgcumbe, R.N."
The French frigate alluded to in Captain (now Sir Francis) Laforey’s certificate, was le Castor, formerly British, rated at 32 guns, and consequently mounting long twelves on her main-deck, with a complement of at least 200 men; whereas the Carysfort was only a 28-gun, nine-pounder, frigate, and 18 of her crew were absent, so that she had 21 men less than her opponent. Both ships had carronades on board at the time of the action, and all accounts agree in stating that each had an equal number, if not of equal calibre. The British, we know, were only 18-pounders[1]. The opinion entertained by the Admiralty of this gallant action may be inferred from the immediate promotion of the Carysfort’s first Lieutenant, and (as soon as the regulations of the service would admit) Mr. Edgcumbe, the senior Master’s Mate. Captain Laforey himself was also rewarded with an appointment to a larger frigate.
In June 1804, Captain Edgcumbe was appointed to the Heron, of 16 guns and 89 men: at the close of that year we find him employed escorting a fleet of merchantmen from England to Barbadoes. An important service which he subsequently performed, at the risk of being tried by a court-martial, for leaving his station without orders, is sufficiently described in the following address, dated in London, Feb. 7, 1807:–
“Sir,- On the part of the planters and merchants of Barbadoes, I am to request your acceptance of the plate which accompanies this letter, as a small but grateful memorial of the high sense they entertain of the service rendered them in the year 1805, at a crisis of great and general alarm, and under circumstances which required in an officer the intrepid exercise of a sound and deliberative judgment.
“A combined fleet of eighteen sail of the line being among the windward Caribbean islands, and reported to be standing to the northward in a manner- ↑ Errata, Vol. I. p. 447, line 3, for 34 read 32; and line 6, for 32 read 36.
Vol. II. Part I. p. 350, line 12 from the bottom, after 6-pounders, read and 4 carronades.
