flag of Admiral George Montagu for about three weeks. She afterwards proceeded to Plymouth, and there received orders to join the Channel fleet.
Captain Curry’s first cruise lasted twenty-five weeks; and the following order from the Hon. Admiral Cornwallis will serve to shew how a first rate ship of war was employed by that gallant veteran during his rigid, we may say unparalleled blockade of Brest, and how much the system of naval warfare had changed since the days of Hawke and Keppel:
“Memo.– While Rear-Admiral Collingwood and the ships with him are at an anchor off the Black Rocks, the Royal Sovereign is to cruise, as nearly as possible, in the passage de l’Iroise, without those ships; and when the Rear-Admiral, upon a change of wind, comes out, the Royal Sovereign is to join, and be considered attached to that squadron, taking care at all times to keep clear of any danger from the shore.
Captain Curry continued to serve under the orders of Admiral Cornwallis till Jan. 1804, when the Royal Sovereign having returned to Plymouth with the loss of her main-topmast and main-yard, was selected to carry a flag, and he in consequence came on shore for a longer period than he had yet been since August 1786. In April 1805 he was appointed pro tempore to the Tribune frigate, stationed off Cherbourg, where he remained watching la Minerve[2] till the month of July following.
His next appointment was, in Jan. 1806, to the Roebuck of 44 guns, in which ship and the Solebay frigate he served as Flag-Captain to Admirals Billy Douglas, Lord Gardner, and Robert Murray, successively commanders-in-chief at North Yarmouth, till the cessation of hostilities in 1814. During the occasional absence of Lord Gardner, owing to the ill health of his lady, and the necessity of attending his parliamentary duties, the whole of the port duty, together with the direction of the squadron, devolved upon Captain Curry,
- ↑ Hawke’s greatest glory was the pursuit of an enemy upon their own coast. In his time it was an almost invariable custom to tack and stand off the moment the French land was discovered. Keppel, in a letter dated twenty-seven leagues from Ushant, assigns as a reason for his not following the foe, that he did not like to chase on a lee-shore. He would hardly have given such an order as the above to a cutter, much less to a 3-decker.
- ↑ See p. 266.
