Lord Nelson behaved very kindly to Captain Hamond when he saw him on board his flag-ship after the battle, and was pleased to say, he would never forget him as long as he lived. On the following Sunday our officer held his Lordship’s prayer book whilst he returned thanks to Almighty God, for the victory which under the Divine auspices had been achieved by the British arms.
The Blanche returned to England with the flag of Sir Hyde Parker, who landed at Yarmouth on the 13th May. During the remainder of the war she was attached to the Channel fleet under Admiral Cornwallis, and employed in occasional cruises to the southward. After the peace of Amiens we find her stationed on the coasts of Cornwall and Devonshire, for the suppression of smuggling; and in the summer of 1802, attending upon his late Majesty and the royal family, at Weymouth. She was paid off at Sheerness, Sept. 22, in the same year. The three succeeding months of Captain Hamond’s life were spent in visiting Havre, Rouen, Paris, the Court of St. Cloud, and Calais.
On the 21st Feb. 1803, Captain Hamond was appointed to the Plantagenet of 74 guns[1], in which ship he captured the Courier de Terre Neuve, a French brig privateer of 16 guns and 54 men, July 24, 1803, and three days afterwards l’Atalante, a beautiful corvette of 22 guns and 120 men. The latter chased the Plantagenet, under the impression that she was an Indiaman, being without a poop. Captain Hamond was obliged to resign the command of this fine ship, through ill-health, in November of the same year; and he remained without any other appointment until the change of Ministry in 1804, when he obtained the command of the Lively, a fine 38-gun frigate, recently launched at Woolwich.
The Lively joined Admiral Cornwallis off Brest, Sept. 23, 1804, and was immediately detached with secret orders to intercept two Spanish frigates expected from Lima with treasure, for which purpose Captain Graham Moore had received similar directions the same day. On the 3d Oct. the Inde-
- ↑ See Vol. I. p. 84.
the island of Amak, not an officer or a man had been off the Blanche’s deck from the time of her first getting under weigh, whereas every other ship’s company had had their regular meals and usual night’s rest.
