rope, salt, and oil; besides assisting at the capture of five merchantmen with cargoes of plank, brandy, leather, and stock-fish; and the re-capture of an Imperial vessel laden with hemp. On the 5th Jan. 1801, Lieutenant Shepheard received a letter from the deputies of the Mercantile Insurance Company at Trieste, of which the following is a translation:–
“Most esteemed Sir,– Not forgetting the influence you have had in defending the Adriatic Gulph, from the invasion of piratical enemies, for the service of the powers in alliance with his Britannick Majesty, we ought, as deputies of this commerce, to make you our acknowledgments, and we therefore beg you will receive with this letter a gold snuff-box, in remembrance of our gratitude; and, with the most perfect esteem, we subscribe ourselves, your most obedient servants,
“This mark of their approbation,” says Lord Keith, in a letter to Lieutenant Shepheard, dated June 9, 1801, “I cannot fail to consider as a flattering testimony of your meritorious exertions, and as highly creditable to the service in which you are employed.”
In the early part of 1801, Lieutenant Shepheard took two French privateers – l’Adelaide, of 3 guns and 51 men; and l’Achille, of 6 guns and 44 men. On the 8th June, in the same year, being then on the coast of Syria, and in sight of an enemy’s squadron under Mons. Gantheaume, he captured la Prudente armed transport, from Toulon bound to Alexandria, laden with ammunition and artificers’ tools; and having on board upwards of 100 persons, including troops and comedians.
At the renewal of hostilities, in 1803, Lieutenant Shepheard was appointed to tiie command of the Basilisk gun-brig, in which vessel he was repeatedly engaged with the Boulogne flotilla, and the land batteries in that neighbourhood. On the 18th Dec. he captured the gun-vessel No. 436, mounting one long brass 18-pounder and a howitzer, with a complement of 35 men. During the winter of 1803-4, he commanded a detachment consisting of three brigs and a cutter, with which small force he maintained the blockade of the enemy’s coast, from Boulogne to Ostend, during the
