Keppel, in the action with the Count d’Orvilliers, on the 27th July, in the same year[1]. Some time after that event, Mr. Byng joined the Alarm frigate, Captain Sir Richard Pearson[2], and subsequently the Active, of 32 guns, Captain Thomas Mackenzie[3]. In the latter vessel he was engaged in the affair at Porto Praya, between Commodore Johnstone and M. de Suffrein; an account of which will be found in our memoir of Sir Henry D’Esterre Darby.
The Active was one of the squadron afterwards detached by the Commodore to escort a fleet of transports and merchant ships to the East Indies; and on her arrival there, Mr. Byng was received on board the Superb, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of Sir Edward Hughes, the gallant protector of India; under whom he served in two severe actions with de Suffrein, one of the ablest officers that the French marine has ever produced[4]. In the last of these conflicts Mr. Byng had a very narrow escape, all the men at the gun at which he was stationed being either killed or badly wounded by the destructive effects of a single shot, whilst he himself received no material injury, although struck by a splinter.
Some time previous to this event, the Superb having been dismasted, and otherwise greatly damaged in a heavy gale of wind, Sir Edward Hughes was obliged to shift his flag, pro tempore, into the Sultan, of the same force. On the 5th Nov. 1783, the former was driven from her anchors in Tellicherry Road, and drifting towards the shore, she struck upon a rock and sank; but fortunately her crew were saved. Hostilities having ceased soon after the last battle, the Commander-in-Chief sailed for Europe, and Mr. Byng was removed into the Defence, 74, bearing the broad pendant of Commodore, afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, with whom he returned to England in the month of Dec. 1785. On his ar-
- ↑ See note †, at p. 195.
- ↑ Sir Richard Pearson was the officer who so nobly defended the Serapis, a 44-gun ship, against a squadron commanded by the noted Paul Jones, Sept, 23, 1779. He died Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, in 1806.
- ↑ Captain Mackenzie commanded the Gibraltar, of 80 guns, in Earl Howe’s action, June 1, 1794; and died a Flag-Officer, Sept. 20, 1813.
- ↑ An account of the different encounters between those officers will be found at pp. 135, 242, &c.
