Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/375

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commanders.
353

mooring-vessel at Mauritius, Feb. 26th, 1830. The Badger was converted into a receiving hulk, and Commander Stow placed on half-pay, in 1833.



JOHN POWNEY, Esq.
[Commander.]

Youngest son of the late Pennyston Portlock Powney, Esq., of Ives Place, Maidenhead, Berks, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Berkshire militia, Custos Rotulorum of that county, Ranger of the Little Park, Windsor, and many years representative in parliament of the borough of New Windsor; who died in 1794, universally regretted.

This officer entered the royal navy in 1800, at a very early age, and served, during the latter part of the French revolutionary war, as midshipman on board the Cambrian frigate, successively commanded by Captains the Hon. Arthur Kaye Legge and George H. Towry, on the Channel station. During the peace of Amiens, we find him serving under Captain (now Sir Edward W. C. R.) Owen and the present Rear-Admiral Vansittart, in the Nemesis and Magicienne frigates; the latter employed in conveying a number of disbanded Dutch troops from Lymington and Jersey to the Texel and Helvoetsluys. After the renewal of hostilities with France, he followed Captain Vansittart into the Fortunée 38, on the North Sea station; and subsequently joined the Phaeton 38, Captain (now the Right Hon. Sir George) Cockburn, with whom he sailed for North America and the East Indies, Sept. 25th, 1803.

The Phaeton, with one of the Hon.E.I. Company’s ships under her convoy, left Chesapeake Bay on the 28th Jan. 1804, and arrived in Madras Roads May 26th. She was next employed in the blockade of the Mauritius and Isle Bourbon, during which service Mr. Powney repeatedly distinguished himself in boat expeditions, particularly at the capture and destruction of a ship which had run ashore, for protection, under a fort situated on Point Cannonière. He returned home Jan. 7th, 1806, in the Howe 38, into which ship Cap-