was introduced by Captain Savage to Lord Rodney, who received him very favorably, and spoke highly of his conduct, but lamented his inability to obtain him that promotion to which he had established so strong a claim[1]. From this period he remained on half-pay until Jan. 1787, when, at the particular request of Captain (the late Sir Charles) Thompson, he was appointed to the Edgar, of 74 guns, in which ship the Hon. Leveson Gower afterwards hoisted his broad pendant as Commodore of a squadron of evolution.
Our officer’s next appointment was in 1790, to the Queen Charlotte, a first rate, bearing the flag of Earl Howe, by whom . he was at length promoted to the rank of Commander in the Incendiary; and from that vessel removed into the Woolwich, a 44-gun ship, armed en flute. In the following year he obtained the command of the Ferret sloop; and after cruizing for some time in the Channel, was sent to the Jamaica station, where he appears to have been principally employed in convoying vessels laden with provisions, sent by the merchants of Kingston for the relief of the distressed white inhabitants of St. Domingo.
It will be remembered by many of our readers, that at this period (1792) a civil war was carried on in the French part of that fine island, occasioned by the attempts made to deprive the people of colour of their landed and other property, which agreeably to the then existing laws, they were entitled to possess to an unlimited amount. Whenever any prisoners of this description were taken, they were broken on a wheel, decapitated, and sawed in two, and their heads stuck on poles. On one occasion, Captain No well, being on his way through the square to the Assembly of Aux Cayes, witnessed some ferocious wretches roasting a Mulatto chief, a man of excellent
- ↑ Soon after the battle of the 12th April, 1782, Mr. Nowell was given to understand that Captain Savage was to have the command of Sir George Rodney’s flag-ship, the Formidable, and himself to be appointed First Lieutenant, all her former officers of that rank having been promoted. This pleasing prospect was destroyed by the arrival of Admiral Pigot from England to assume the chief command of the fleet. At their interview in London, Lord Rodney reminded Lieutenant Nowell of what his intentions had been towards him; adding, “You shortly afterwards would have been promoted; I am now in the opposition, and have no interest whatever; I cannot get my own son a ship.”
