Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/245

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226
commanders.


JOHN RIVETT CARNAC, Esq.
[Commander.]

Entered the royal navy in 1810; obtained his first commission in Oct. 1818; and subsequently served as lieutenant of the Racehorse sloop, Captains the Hon. George P. Campbell and Charles Abbot, in the Mediterranean; Rochfort 80, flag-ship of Sir Graham Moore, commander-in-chief on that station; Galatea 42, Captain Sir Charles Sullivan, fitting out at Deptford; and Success 28, Captain James Stirling, employed in examining the western coast of New Holland, previous to the establishment of the colony at Swan River[1]. He was made a commander on the 30th April, 1827; appointed to the Wellesley 74, Captain Samuel Campbell Rowley, Sept. 21st, 1830; and paid off from that ship Jan. 21st, 1832.



SPENCER LAMBART HUNTER VASSALL, Esq.
[Commander.]

Eldest son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Spencer Thomas Vassall, H.M. 38th regiment, who, after twenty-eight years of active and unremitting service, during which he had acquired a high military reputation, was mortally wounded at the storming of Monte Video, Feb. 3d, 1807, at the moment he had conducted his corps through the breach in the walls of that fortress. The following is taken from a printed memoir of that gallant officer:–

“Lieutenant-Colonel Vassall was the second son of the late John Vassall, Esq., of the Crescent, Bath, and of Newfound River, in the island of Jamaica. The latter derived his origin from a gentleman of the same name, who, as Rushworth informs us, fitted out two ships of war at his own expence, and led them in person against the Spanish Armada, in the year 1588. He also reckoned among his immediate ancestors Alderman Samuel Vassall, member in several successive parliaments for the city of London, who took an active part in the political transactions of his time. He was the first man in England who had the courage to