going out with a recommendation to a Viceroy, to put him in a way of filling his purse with money. The Guachapin was afterwards a British sloop of war.
Captain Penrose returned home in the Carnatic 74, many of the crew of which ship “had never set foot on land for 6 or 7 years, except in the dock-yard at Jamaica.” When paid off, at Plymouth, the ship’s company, exclusive of commissioned and warrant officers, received upwards of 22,000l. wages; but we question whether they left that town with as many shillings in their possession, for, “in a few hours some, and in a day or two many of these valuable men, were pennyless.”
At the renewal of hostilities, in 1803, Captain Penrose accepted the command of the Padstow district of sea-fencibles; the effects of a coup-de-soleil, which he received previous to his departure from the West Indies, rendering it necessary that he should continue for some time longer on shore.
In the summer of 1810, an extensive flotilla establishment was ordered to be formed at Gibraltar, principally for the defence of Cadiz; and Captain Penrose was appointed to the chief command, with the rank of Commodore. He accordingly repaired to the rock, and hoisted his broad pendant on board the San Juan sheer-hulk, lying in the New Mole.
Finding himself short of hands to man the gun-boats, and understanding that there were many men in the regiments forming the garrison who would gladly volunteer to serve afloat, the Commodore made an immediate application to Lieutenant-Governor Campbell for his permission to receive them, and had no sooner obtained it than nearly 300 prime seamen came forward, anxious once more to appear in “true blue.” Commodore Penrose found that these men had left the naval service “principally on account of long confinement afloat; but that they had by no means acquired a taste for their present employ.”
The Gibraltar flotilla proved of great utility, not only at the defence of Cadiz, but during the whole of the time that the French army under Marshal Soult continued in the south of Spain. The arduous nature of the services in which it was
