wretch very deliberately laid his left hand, and cut it off about the wrist. This man was allowed to proceed to America in the Essex, the commander-in-chief at Plymouth considering that he had punished himself sufficiently. We have never heard of a more wanton attack on the life of an officer, who was but obeying the orders of his superior; nor ever heard of a more astonishing escape.
Captain Roberts’s brother, Thomas, is a commander, R.N. His services will be noticed at the commencement of our next volume.
GEORGE GOSLING, Esq.
[Captain of 1825.]
This officer, while serving as lieutenant of the Havannah frigate[1], was, from his knowledge of the French language, often employed in conveying flags of truce to Brindisi, &c. &c. and always acquitted himself to the perfect satisfaction of his: superiors. The merchant ship and sloop mentioned in p. 277 of Vol. III. Part I. were captured two days previous to the landing of the British troops near Baillif, in the island of Guadaloupe. In speaking of the capture of the piratical schooner Veloy, we have stated that sixteen of her crew were secured; whereas the number taken prisoners amounted to eighteen, one of whom, the boatswain, was hung at Jamaica, it having been proved that he was the man who fired the gun which wounded Lieutenant Lloyd. An act of parliament was afterwards passed, granting head-money for all pirates captured subsequent to January 1st, 1820: but the officers and ship’s company of the Ontario were refused any compensation by the Lords of the Treasury, because they had broken the ice, by taking the Veloy, on the 17th December, 1819. Captain Gosling married Miss Felicia June Johnson, on the 20th Nov. 1821; not in the year 1822, as is stated at the conclusion of his memoir in Vol. III. Part I.
