THOMAS PEARSE, Esq
[Superannuated Rear-Admiral.]
Posted Dec. 6, 1796; superannuated Aug. 24, 1819; resides at Bradninch, near Columpton, in Devonshire.
JOSEPH BULLEN, Esq
[Superannuated Rear-Admiral.]
This officer, the second son of the late Rev. John Bullen, Rector of Kennet, in Cambridgeshire, and of Rushmoor-cumNewburn, co. Suffolk, entered the navy in 1774, under the patronage of the late Hon. Sir William Cornwallis, and served with that admirable officer during the greater part of the American war. He was with him in the Isis at the reduction of Mud fort[1], and in the Lion, in the action between Byron and d’Estaing[2].
On the glorious 12th April, 1782, when Rodney defeated de Grasse, we find Mr. Bullen serving as a Lieutenant on board the Prince George of 98 guns, commanded by the late Captain John Williams, and not by the present Admiral Freeman, as stated in our first volume[3]. The Prince on that occasion was next astern of the Princessa, which ship carried the flag of Rear-Admiral Drake, and led the fleet into action. Lieutenant Bullen subsequently served with the late Lord Nelson, in the Hinchinbrooke frigate, on the Mosquito shore; where the mortality was so great, owing to the unhealthiness of the climate, that at the end of six weeks, only 27 officers and men were surviving, out of a complement of 235.
- ↑ See Retired Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hamond.
- ↑ See Retired Captain Robert Fanshawe.
- ↑ We were led into the mistake alluded to, by Schomberg, whose errors of this description are innumerable. Early in 1780, a project was formed by General Dalling, Governor of Jamaica, against the Spanish American colonies. This design was to take Fort St. Juan, on the river of that name, which flows from the Lake Nicaragua, into the Atlantic; make himself master of the lake itself, and of the cities of Grenada and Leon; and thus cut off the communication of the Spaniards between their northern and southern possessions in America. Here it is that a canal between the two seas may most easily be formed; a work more important in its consequences than any which has ever yet been effected by human power. The Secretary of State for the American department approved the plan; and as discontents at that time were known to prevail in the Neuvo Reyno, in Popayan, and in Peru, the more sanguine part of the English nation began to dream of acquiring an empire in one part of America, more extensive than that which they were on the point of losing in another. General Balling’s plans were well-formed; but
