situation of her crew may be readily conceived. On approaching the wreck, the boats were welcomed with three cheers; and whilst the tide was ebbing they succeeded in removing every seaman, marine, and boy, to the Zealous 74: not one of the officers, however, would quit their post until this service was accomplished; and before the boats could return to take them away also, the sand was again overflown, which rendered it impracticable to approach the wreck within a considerable distance. The destruction of the officers now seemed inevitable; but happily they were rescued from their perilous situation by the undaunted conduct of Lieutenant Jackson, who being determined to leave no means untried, pulled to windward in the Egmont’s launch, forced her through a heavy sea, and at length gained the shattered fabric, when, to the indescribable joy of every one near the spot, the Bombay Castle’s officers were seen lowering themselves from the jib-boom and spritsail yard into the boat thus heroically brought to their relief, and which afterwards conveyed them in safety to the others. We feel much pleasure in adding, that Lieutenant Jackson’s extraordinary exertions were duly appreciated by the court-martial subsequently assembled to investigate the circumstances attending the loss of the Bombay Castle, and that the thanks of the court for his intrepidity and humanity were publicly communicated to him by the president, Captain (now Sir Thomas) Foley.
The Egmont assisted at the defeat of the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Feb. 14, 1797, on which occasion Lieutenant Jackson was slightly wounded.
We next find the subject of this memoir commanding the Egmont’s barge, and gallantly supporting Sir Horatio Nelson in his attack upon the Cadiz flotilla, under Don Miguel Tyrason, who had come out with a large force in order to cut off the Thunder bomb, during her retreat from before the walls of that city, July 3, 1797[1]. The transactions of that night are thus described by Nelson, in a letter to Earl St. Vincent:–
