Islands, a noted rendezvous for the enemies’ privateers. The Amphitrite also formed part of the squadron under Rear-Admiral Duckworth at the occupation of the Danish and Swedish islands, in 1801[1].
The precarious state of Captain Ekins’s health, at this period, rendering a change of climate requisite, that excellent officer was sent with the naval despatches to England; and on his quitting the Amphitrite he recommended Lieutenant Burton in such high terms, as to induce Rear-Admiral Duckworth to give him the temporary command of her.
Lieutenant Burton’s next appointment was to the Southampton 32, of which frigate he likewise became for a short time acting commander, owing to the death of Captain John Miller Gamier. While in that ship he received the thanks of the Rear-Admiral for his active exertions and judicious conduct, by which she was saved from destruction, during a most violent gale at St. Martin’s.
In Nov. 1801 , Lieutenant Burton was removed to the Leviathan 74, and in her accompanied Sir John T. Duckworth to Jamaica, where he was promoted by that officer to the command of the Woolwich storeship, in Dec. 1802.
Being paid off on his return home, in the spring of 1803, Captain Burton remained unemployed from that time until May 1804, when he received a commission for the Romulus frigate, armed en flûte, then stationed as a block-ship on the coast of Essex, and afterwards sent with troops to the river Elbe. We subsequently find him commanding the Wildboar a 10-gun brig, employed on the Lisbon station; where he captured a French schooner, carrying some staff officers from Ferrol to Bayonne.
In Feb. 1810, being then on his return to the Tagus, after landing a military officer with despatches at Falmouth, Captain Burton had the misfortune to be wrecked on the Rundlestone rock, between Scilly and the Lands’-end; by which disaster 12 men perished. On the 23d of the following month,
- ↑ See id. p. 765, and note † at p. 798 et seq. N.B. The Amphitrite was commanded for a short time by Lieutenant Charles Marshall Gregory, “an officer of great merit and activity.”
