Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp2.djvu/237

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
POST-CAPTAINS OF 1810.
223

patches from Mr. Drake the British minister, by whom he had been treated with much kindness and attention during his short residence in the Genoese capital.

Lieutenant Lillicrap’s next appointment was to the Trusty of 50 guns, Captain John Osborne; which ship, after being engaged in a variety of services, was ordered to convey Lord Macartney to his government, the Cape of Good Hope.

During the mutiny in the squadron on that station, Lieutenant Lillicrap was selected by Rear-Admiral Pringle to command the Rattlesnake sloop; which vessel he succeeded in placing close under the guns of the Amsterdam battery. Table bay, where the ringleaders of her crew were obliged to surrender. After witnessing the punishment of these men and their accomplices, he resumed his station as first of the Trusty, and returned home under the command of Captain Andrew Todd[1], in 1799.

The Trusty being then paid off, Lieutenant Lillicrap wag immediately appointed to the Venerable 74, Captain Sir W. George Fairfax; under whose gallant successor, the late Sir Samuel Hood, K.B. he bore a part in the battle off Algeziras, July 6, 1801[2]. The Venerable, on that occasion, sustained a loss of 8 killed and 25 wounded.

The subsequent destruction of two Spanish 3-deckers, and the capture of a 74-gun ship, in the Gut of Gibralter, have been correctly related at p. 271 of Supplement Part I. The Venerable’s very gallant action with the ship which had recently borne the flag of Mons. Linois, but who was then on board a Spanish frigate, is thus noticed by Sir James Saumarez, in his public letter of July 13, 1801:

“The Venerable and Spencer having at this time come up, I bore away after the enemy, who were carrying a press of sail, standing out of the Straits, and lost sight of them during the night. It blew excessively hard till day-light, and in the morning, the only ships in company were the Venerable and Thames, a-head of the Caesar, and one of the French ships at some distance from them, standing towards the shoals of Conil, besides the Spencer a-stern coming up. – All the ships immediately made sail with a fresh breeze; but, as we approached, the wind suddenly failing, the Ven-