Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/521

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addenda to captains.
493

perfectly uninjured state, been restored to their owners, and safely secured within the piers of this port.”

On the 25th Jan. Commander Glascock reported that the fourth vessel, a sloop belonging to Dumbarton, had, by the greatest exertions on the part of his officers and crew, been got off, and likewise safely secured in Galway harbour. The only reward which he received for these services, not having made any claim for salvage, was, the official approval of his commander-in-chief. Rear-Admiral the Hon. Sir Charles Paget.

Commander Glascock was next sent, in May 1831, to the river Tyne, to tranquillize the dissatisfied seamen of Newcastle and Shields. His situation there was beset with difficulties of a critical nature, arising from political causes, the prejudices peculiar to the seamen of the north, and the anomalous jurisdiction of the river, added to the circumstance of his possessing no definite official instructions to guide and govern his public conduct. After four months of unenviable service, however, he succeeded, to the satisfaction of all parties, in subduing the riotous, and restoring order, for which he received a public expression of thanks from the mayor and corporation of Newcastle. He was subsequently employed as senior officer on the Irish station.

Pending the civil war in Portugal, Commander Glascock was entrusted with the command of the naval force in the Douro, which he retained for nearly a year. During the greater part of this time, the city of Oporto was in a constant state of actual siege, and the British squadron as constantly exposed to the incessant cross-fire of both belligerents, and in hourly danger of explosion from the interminable succession of shells bursting and falling in the river. No instance stands on record of an officer of the same rank holding a command replete with such personal responsibility, and fraught with consequences of such international and political import. The following is an outline of the occurrences in that quarter during the period of his command:

The Orestes entered the Douro on the 23d Sept. 1832, in company with the Childers sloop, Commander Robert Deans,