flag-ship to a mere wreck thereby compelling her to bear up for Plymouth, where she arrived with the remnant of her scattered charge, on the 1st of February.
The Courageux requiring to be docked, Rear-Admiral Dacres then hoisted his flag in the Française frigate, and prosecuted his voyage in that ship, accompanied by the subject of this memoir, whom we shortly afterwards find commanding the Osprey sloop, on the Leeward Islands’ station: his commission as a Commander bears date Sept. 4, 1804.
Captain Byam’s next appointments were, Dec. 1, 1804, to the Busy, of 18 guns; and Oct. 1805, to the Bermuda, a brig of similar force: the latter vessel was wrecked on the Memory Rock, Little Bermuda, April 22, 1808. He subsequently commanded the Opossum, of 10 guns, at Surinam, Halifax, Jamaica, and the Caribbee islands: his post commission bears date Jan. 24, 1811. In the course of that year the Thetis frigate, then under his command, had 7 midshipmen, the clerk, and 73 of her crew carried off by the yellow fever.
Although Captain Byam never had the good fortune to meet with an hostile vessel of equal force to his own, we are informed that he always cruised with considerable success against the enemy’s privateers and merchantmen. The last service he performed, was that of escorting home a very valuable Jamaica fleet, at the commencement of the late war between Great Britain and America, for which he received the personal thanks of Lord Melville, who happened to be at Chatham when the Thetis arrived there. We should here remark, that very great anxiety had been felt for the safety of this convoy, as it was known that our newly declared enemy had sent out a strong squadron, under Commodore Rodgers, purposely to intercept it[1].
Captain Byam married, Oct. 11, 1813, his first cousin, Alicia, daughter of the late Hon. Anthony Wyke, one of the Members of H.M. Council for Montserrat, and Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of that island.
Agent.– John Chippendale, Esq.
