to be present, he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Melpomène 38, Capt. Peter Parker. While in that frigate, to which the Admiralty confirmed him 29 Jan. 1806, he was struck by lightning in a tempest almost fatal to the ship; co-operated in the defence of Gaeta, when besieged by 30,000 troops under Marshal Massena; made prize, in a six-oared cutter (although with only four cutlasses and two pistols among the nine persons under his orders) of a French row-boat, whose crew, 16 in number, and well-armed, rose and re-took their vessel;[1] participated in various particular services; commanded the Melpomène’s boats on numerous successful occasions; and assisted at Malta in re-capturing Fort Ricozali, when in possession of Fubourg’s mutinous regiment. In 1807 Mr. Lovell rejoined Sir John Borlase Warren in the Swiftsure 74, on the Halifax station, where he continued until Feb. 1811; encountering during that period, 4 May, 1810, a very severe accident, which deprived him, while doing duty as First-Lieutenant, of five teeth, and caused him a fracture of the jaw. In the course of 1811, having been sent to Lisbon on promotion, he was there placed by Admiral Berkeley in command of the Topaze hospital-ship. He chanced, shortly afterwards, to be present on shore at the siege of Badajos. On 11 June, 1812, he received an order to act as Commander of the Brune 38, armée en flûte; and, on 13 of the ensuing Aug., he had the satisfaction of finding the appointment confirmed. While employed, at first, in the Mediterranean, Capt. Lovell prevented a French foraging party, 300 strong, from levying contributions on the inhabitants bf Altea; drove a small privateer on shore near the town of Denia; was mentioned for the assistance he afforded while attached to the army at the siege of the Col de Balaguer; and conveyed Sir John Murray to Palermo after his retreat from before Tarragona. The meritorious nature of his conduct, indeed, throughout the whole of the operations on the coast of Catalonia had the effect of procuring him the public thanks of Sir Edward Pellew, Rear-Admiral Benj. Hallowell, and the present Sir Chas. Adam. On his return with Lord Mahon to England, Capt. Lovell was ordered with a large body of troops to Holland, and then sent to North America; where, among different services incidental to a troop-ship, we find him blockading Commodore Barney’s flotilla up the Patuxent – commanding a subdivision of boats in the expedition to Washington, which occasioned his being 18 days and nights absent from his ship – serving also on shore in the attack upon Baltimore, on the failure whereof, and the death of General Ross, he conveyed in his own boat the body of that distinguished officer on board the Tonnant – accompanying Capts. Robt. Barrie and C. B. H. Ross, subsequently, in expeditions up the Rapahannock and St. Mary’s rivers – and contributing to the destruction of the enemy’s works on the coast of Georgia. The activity, gallantry, and ability .manifested on every occasion by Capt. Lovell procured him the warm acknowledgments of Rear-Admiral Cockburn. He was promoted to Post-rank, on paying off the Brune, 21 Aug. 1815; was nominated a K.H. 25 Jan. 1836; and accepted the Retirement 1 Oct. 1846.
Capt. Lovell married, 2 Jan. 1822, Selina, youngest daughter of the late Sir Henry Harpur Crewe, Bart., of Calke Abbey, by whom, who died 30 March, 1838, he has issue a son, a Lieutenant in the 16th Regt., and three daughters. Agents – Burnett and Holmes.
LOWCAY. (Commander, 1813. f-p., 22; h-p., 34.)
Henry Lowcay is son of Mr. Henry Lowcay, a veteran warrant-officer, who was Master’s Mate of the Swallow sloop of war in a voyage of discovery to the South Seas in 1766-9, and died 5 Feb. 1827, at Portsmouth, aged 87; and brother of Retired Commander William, and Lieut. Robt. Lowcay, R.N. He had three other brothers, one of whom died a Lieutenant R.N.; a second, a First-Lieutenant R.M., from the effects of fever caught at the Brazils; and the third, from the sufferings he had endured when cast away, as Midshipman, on the coast of Africa.
This officer entered the Navy, 2 April, 1791, as Midshipman, on board the Duke 98, Capts. Robt. Kingsmill, Robt. Calder, and John Knight, flagship for some time of Admirals Roddam and Lord Hood in the Channel. Removing, in Aug. 1792, to the Juno,32, Capt. Sam. Hood, he assisted at the commencement of the war at the capture of many of the enemy’s vessels, and was on board that frigate in Jan. 1794, when she effected an extraordinary escape from the inner harbour of Toulon, into which she had entered in ignorance of the previous evacuation of the British. After witnessing the surrender of the tower of Mortella and the capture of Fornelli, in the island of Corsica, he followed Capt. Hood, in March, 1794, into L’Aigle 36, and in the course of the same year was present at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi. When next with the same Captain, in the Zealous 74, Mr. Lowcay united in Nelson’s attack upon Santa Cruz, TenerifFe, 24 July, 1797. At the commencement of the operations he took voluntary command of a boat, but had not been long in her before she was sunk, and had 1 of her men killed, by the enemy’s shot. In consequence of this disaster he was obliged to swim on shore under a tremendous fire of round, grape, and musketry, and through a very high surf. On landing he joined Capt. Hood, and continued by him as his Aide-de-Camp during the remainder of the proceedings. In Dec. 1797, a few weeks after his removal to the Ville de Paris 110, flag-ship of Earl St. Vincent, he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Culloden 74, Capt. Thos. Troubridge, then off Cadiz, where, while engaged one night in rowing guard, he pursued, and, notwithstanding some resistance, captured an armed brig. On 1 Aug. 1798 it was Mr. Lowcay’s fortune to be present at the battle of the Nile; subsequently to which we find him making prize, with the ship’s boats under his orders, of a vast number of laden market-boats between Alexandria and Rosetta, and at the same time intercepting a large quantity of church-plate taken at Malta. Being confirmed a Lieutenant of the Culloden by commission dated 7 Jan. 1799, he officiated in the course of that year as Aide-de-Camp to Capt. Troubridge, and gained great praise for his meritorious conduct, at the sieges of St. Elmo and Capua, and in the various operations which terminated with the expulsion of the French from the Roman territory.[2] He was then sent in an open country boat from Naples to Palermo with despatches for Lord Nelson, and in charge of all the colours that had been taken from the enemy. The latter his Lordship deputed him to present to the Sicilian King, who in return gave him a valuable diamond ring, and made him the bearer of another, as also of a snuff-box, for Capt. Troubridge. After passing a fortnight as a guest at Lord Nelson’s house, Lieut. Lowcay went back to the Culloden; prior to the return of which ship to England in the summer of 1800 he came into further boat-contact with the enemy in the vicinity of Cadiz, and saw good service along the Egyptian and Italian shores. With the exception of a few months in 1802-3, during which he served on board the Pique 36, Capt. Wm. Cumberland, he presents himself to our notice as attached, between Sept. 1800 and Feb. 1806, to the Prince of Wales 98, bearing the flag of Sir Robt. Calder, under whom he shared in the action off Cape Finisterre 22 July, 1805. He then performed the duties of Flag-Lieutenant for upwards of two years to the late Sir Geo. Martin, in the Gladiator, Montagu, Queen, and Canopus, on the Portsmouth and Mediterranean stations. In the summer of 1808, having returned to England in the Bittern sloop, Capt. Thos. Ussher, he obtained an appointment to the Sea
