mate, acting Master, and Lieutenant; onboard the Hyaena of 21 guns, Captain John Aylmer; Orion 74, Captain John T. Duckworth; and la Nymphe, Arethusa, and Indefatigable frigates, commanded by his friend and patron, the present Viscount Exmouth. An account of the numerous and important services performed by the last three ships, between June, 1793, and the spring of 1799, will be found at pp. 212–219 of our first volume. Lieutenant Bell afterwards assisted at the capture of la Venus French frigate, and several privateers[1].
From the conclusion of the war in 1801 (at which period the Indefatigable was commanded by Captain Matthew Henry Scott), we find no mention of Lieutenant Bell until the summer of 1801, when he proceeded to India, as first of Sir Edward Pellew’s flag-ship, the Culloden 74.
Shortly after his arrival on that station, the subject of this memoir was appointed to command the Victor sloop, and sent to the Persian Gulph, where he captured les Amis Reunis French privateer, May 7, 1805. The following extract of a letter from Captain Bell to the commander-in-chief, dated at Port Cornwallis, May 22, 1807, contains an account of a most singular and bloody conflict, in which he was unexpectedly engaged on the 15th of the preceding month:
“Your Excellency has undoubtedly ere now received one of my letters respecting the capture of four brigs out of Batavia roads.
“Off Cheribon (a little to the eastward of Batavia), on the 15th April, we chased, and brought to, three proas, under Dutch colours. At five P.M., on its falling calm, we anchored, hoisted out our boats, and sent them armed to bring the proas alongside; two were brought to the larboard-side, the other hung on the quarter: got the prisoners out of the two alongside (amounting to near 120), and placed a strong guard over them, under the direction of Lieutenant Wemyss[2], as I intended sending them away, after overhauling their cargoes.
Lieutenant (Robert White) Parsons[3] had been on board the proa on the quarter, but returned with his people on finding it impracticable to get- ↑ See Vol. I. Part I. p. 427, and note at ditto.
- ↑ The present Captain James Wemyss, M.P. then acting as Lieutenant of the Victor.
- ↑ A Commander of 1816.
