Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp2.djvu/336

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POST-CAPTAINS OF 1811.
319

duties of a midshipman on the same station, he preferred having his discharge, to continuing in the service without any prospect of promotion; little imagining that hostilities would so soon be renewed. His wishes being complied with by the Rear-Admiral, he immediately obtained the command of a West Indiaman, and continued in her until some time after the re-commencement of the war, when we find him joining the Culloden 74, commanded by Captain Christopher Cole, and about to receive the flag of Sir Edward Pellew, now Viscount Exmouth, by whom he was successively appointed to two frigates, on the East India station: the name of the first we do not remember; the other (the Cornwallis) he was reluctantly obliged to leave, through ill health, just as she was about to make the interesting trip of which an outline has been given at pp. 170–174, of Suppl. Part I.

Mr. Fellowes returned home in the Hindostan 50, and next joined the Acasta frigate. Captain Philip Bearer, an officer of great professional and literary attainments, who likewise gave him the charge of a watch, and with whom he continued until he was at length promoted into the Belleisle 74, bearing the flag of Sir Alexander Cochrane, at the Leeward Islands, June 29, 1807.

Shortly after his advancement, Lieutenant Fellowes was appointed to the Melville sloop of war. Captain the Hon. James W. King; and in the same year he assisted at the capture of the Danish islands, together with a large fleet of merchantmen[1].

We next find Lieutenant Fellowes commanding the Swinger gun-brig, and assisting at the capture of Deseada; on which occasion he marched into the interior of that island, with forty men under his orders, for the purpose of attacking about seventy regular troops and militia, who had retreated thither after making a vain attempt to prevent the British from landing: these men having accepted the terms offered, laid down their arms and were secured by Lieutenant Fellowes, a circumstance not mentioned in Captain Selby’s letter, at p. 53 of this volume.