the Monarch 74. His maternal grandmother was many years matron of the royal hospital at Greenwich[1].
The subject of this memoir was born at Kentish Town, near London, Jan. 14, 1786; and he entered the navy, under the auspices of the illustrious Nelson, Oct. 4, 1797. The first ship in which he embarked was the Hector 74, for a passage to join the Emerald frigate, Captain Thomas Moutray Waller, under whom he served for a period of three years. We subsequently find him in the San Josef 120, and St. George 98, the latter bearing the flag of his noble patron in the expedition sent to act against the Northern Confederacy. After his return from the Baltic he successively joined the Revolutionnaire, Phoebe, and Endymion frigates.
In 1804, Mr. Peyton was again received on board Nelson’s flagship, the Victory of 100 guns, in which he served as master’s-mate, till his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant, about Sept. 1805. On that occasion, he was appointed to the Canopus 80; but his lordship very soon removed him to the Ambuscade frigate, commanded by Captain William d’Urban, and most actively employed in checking the progress of the French arms on the shores of the Adriatic.
In the course of that service Captain D’Urban fitted out a small vessel as a tender, armed her with the launch’s carronade, and placed her under the command of Lieutenant Peyton, who soon captured several of the enemy’s coasters. On one occasion, a French privateer of 6 long guns and 30 men, came out from Ancona, for the purpose of rescuing a prize he had just taken, but after an hour’s manoeuvring, and firing on both sides, she sheered off and returned into port, without having injured any of the tender’s crew, then consisting of only 8 men.
The Ambuscade subsequently co-operated with some Calabrese troops under the present Colonel Lord Greenock, in an attempt to reduce the Tremiti islands, on the coast of Apulia; but the force employed not being sufficient to accom-
- ↑ Mrs. Lobb’s eldest son unfortunately perished at sea. A sketch of the service of Admiral Joseph Peyton is given at p. 266 of Nav. Chron. vol. 12. He died at his seat, Wakehurst Park, Sussex, Sept. 22, 1804.
