which ship he soon after removed into the Vesuve gun-vessel. Oh the 29th of the following month he was advanced to the rank of Commander, and appointed to la Suffisante of 14 guns.
On the 27th May, 1796, Captain Tomlinson, after a chase of eleven hours, and an action of thirty minutes, captured la Revanche French national brig, of twelve long 4-pounders and 85 men, between Ushant and the Main, then a lee shore. The enemy had 2 men killed and 7 wounded; la Suffisante only 1 man wounded. Vice-Admiral Onslow, when reporting this capture, expressed himself as follows:
“From all the accounts I hear, Captain Tomlinson’s conduct upon this occasion was highly honorable to himself as an officer and a seaman, as more danger was attached to la Suffisante, from the risk of shipwreck upon the enemy’s coast, in the passage le Fore, than from the force of the enemy, from which difficulty he very ably extricated himself.”
In the following month Captain Tomlinson captured la Patriote and le Morgan French privateers, the latter mounting 16 guns; an American ship, and a Danish brig, the one laden with contraband stores, the other with French property; and re-captured six valuable British merchantmen.
On the 1st Aug. in the same year he attacked a French convoy, consisting of a brig mounting 16 guns, two cutters of 14 guns each, and seventeen sail of merchant vessels, eight of which he drove on shore and destroyed. He subsequently captured a large ship laden with rice and wine, and two other French vessels; a Dutch vessel laden with wine, and a ship with masts and spars, the latter bound to Spain; and four Spanish vessels, one of which he gave up to the prisoners.
For these and other services he was deservedly advanced to the rank of Post-Captain, Dec. 12, 1796; nor was this the only reward he received for his zealous exertions, as will appear by the following documents:
“Meeting of the Committee for encouraging the capture of French Privateers, Armed Vessels, &c. July 14, 1796.
