promotion on that station were extinguished. He returned home in the Salcette frigate, early in 1808; and subsequently served as first lieutenant of the Brunswick 74, Captain Thomas Graves, on the Baltic station.
In the beginning of 1809, the Brunswick was beset with ice, and repeatedly driven into very shoal water; on her arrival in Yarmouth roads, she had not a gun or shot on board, the only anchor at her bows wanted a fluke, and she had but one ton of water remaining. In the postscript to Lord Gambier’s official despatch, reporting the result of an attack upon a French squadron in the road of Isle d’Aix, April 11th, 1809, we find the following mention made of Lieutenant Bissell:–
“Since writing the foregoing, I have learnt that the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Cochrane, and Lieutenant Bissell, of the navy, were volunteers in the Imperieuse, and rendered themselves extremely useful; the former by commanding some guns on the main-deck, and the latter in conducting one of the explosion vessels.”
The vessel thus alluded to contained about 1,500 barrels of gunpowder, started into puncheons placed end-upward, fastened to each other by hawsers wound round them, and joined together with wedges, having moistened sand rammed down between them, so as to render the whole, from stem to stern, quite solid, and thereby increase the resistance: besides which, on the top of this mass of gunpowder, lay between 300 and 400 charged shells, and nearly as many thousands of hand grenades. She appears to have been ignited when within less than three-quarters of a mile from the enemy’s line: how near to it she exploded, and what effect the blast produced, the French themselves are the most competent to state.
For his gallant conduct on this occasion, Lieutenant Bissell was promoted to the rank of commander, and his commission dated back to April 11th, 1809. He subsequently commanded the Savage, of 16 guns; and was dismissed from that sloop, by the sentence of a court-martial, for running her ashore at Guernsey, in Jan. 1814. He died at Kentish Town, near London, Mar. 31st, 1826.
