to act as Captain of that ship, which still bore Sir Richard Hughes’s flag. From a circumstance nearly similar, our officer shortly afterwards received another appointment. Toards the latter end of the same year, Captain Lindsay, of the Penelope frigate, resigned his commission, and Captain Hope was nominated to succeed him. He accordingly took the command of the Penelope, pro forma, and then returned to the Adamant. The Board of Admiralty, however, did not think proper to confirm his commission for the former ship; and the latter having been ordered home, he paid her off at Plymouth in the summer of 1792.
From this period we find no mention of Captain Hope till Jan. 1793. He then commissioned the Incendiary fireship; and continued in that vessel until Jan. 9, 1794, on which day he was advanced to the rank of Post-Captain in the Bellerophon, of 74 guns, at that time bearing the broad pendant, and subsequently the flag of the late Sir Thomas Pasley, who, it will be remembered, commanded a division of Earl Howe’s fleet in the actions of May 28 and 29, and the ever memorable battle of June 1, in the same year, a general outline of which will be found in our memoir of Admiral Lord Gambier[1].
On the 28th May, the republican fleet being discovered to windward, Rear-Admiral Pasley led on his own division with firmness and intrepidity to the attack. Towards the evening the Bellerophon brought the Revolutionnaire, of 110 guns, to action, and maintained the unequal contest for upwards of an hour, before any other of the British ships could arrive to support her. Being then disabled, she bore down to the main body of the fleet; and the darkness of the night soon after put an end to the partial action that had taken place between the advanced division and the rear of the enemy’s line. At the dawn of the ensuing day, both fleets appeared drawn up in order of battle; and on Lord Howe making the signal to break through the French line, the Bellerophon immediately obeyed and passed between the fifth and sixth ships in the enemy’s rear, accompanied by the Queen Charlotte and Leviathan. The rest of the British being at this time in the act of passing to leeward, and without the sternmost ships of
