Stoddart and Geo. Paris Monke. In command of one of the boats belonging to that ship Mr. Peake, while cruizing on the coast of Norway, assisted in taking, at one time, two Danish privateers, mounting respectively 6 and 5 guns; and, at another, two Danish cutters. The Pallas being wrecked off St. Abb’s Head 18 Dec. 1810, he again, in the following Feb., joined Capt. Graham on board the Alcmène 38, fitting for the Mediterranean station, where he was soon afforded an opportunity of participating in much detached service. On 22 May, 1812, in particular, we find him (the Alcmène being at the time on a cruize to the Adriatic) present, in command of the Captain’s 6-oared gig, in a most gallant but sanguinary attack made by four boats, under Lieut. Edw. Saurin, upon an enemy’s armed convoy, the result of which was the capture of one of their principal vessels, after nearly the whole of the crew had been either killed or wounded. The slaughter on the part of the British was likewise dreadful – the pinnace alone sustaining a loss of at least 20 officers and men killed and wounded. Mr. Peake afterwards assisted at the cutting out of a vessel from under a battery; at the capture of a French national schooner, La Flêche, of 12 guns; and at the further cutting out, on the coast of Corsica, of two polacres and a xebec. On leaving the Alcmène, which ship had been latterly commanded by Capt. Jeremiah Coghlan, he was received, 6 March, 1814, on board the Caledonia 120, bearing the flag of Sir Edw. Pellew, by whom, after witnessing the fall of Genoa, he was nominated, 27 April in the same year, Acting-Lieutenant of a 74-gun ship of that name, commanded by Capt. Arthur Stow. On 1 July following his promotion was confirmed. He went on half-pay in Nov. 1814; and was next, 3 July, 1818, appointed to the Euryalus 42, Capts. Thos. Huskisson and Wilson Braddyll Bigland. On 27 Sept. 1820, having risen to the post of First-Lieutenant, Mr. Peake was appointed by the former officer, who had become Commodore on the Jamaica station, to the command of the Bann sloop, rendered vacant by the death of Capt. Stow of the Tamar, and the removal to that ship of the commander of the Bann. On the arrival, however, of the latter vessel at Halifax, Rear-Admiral Griffith, the Commander-in-Chief, also thought proper to fill up the vacancy. This fact being communicated to the Commodore, he forthwith wrote to the Admiralty, requesting that their Lordships would not suffer him to be deprived of the patronage which so justly belonged to him, the vacancy having occurred while the Tamar was within the limits of his station. Unwilling to grant the request, the Board superseded all the appointments that had taken place, and gave the command of the Tamar to an officer then in England; at the same time paying off the sloop he commanded, in order to avoid promoting either of the Lieutenants selected by the Commodore and Rear-Admiral. Mr. Peake subsequently commanded the Euryalus for a short period; and on the paying off of that ship in Aug. 1821 was presented by the crew with a handsome silver vase and cover, together with a sword and belt, as a testimony of their “gratitude and esteem.” Unsuccessful in his endeavours to procure employment, he remained thenceforward on half-pay.
The Lieutenant,[1] whose wife, Margaret Peake, had died 3 May, 1840, has left issue a son (educated at the Royal Naval School) and a daughter.
PEAKE. (Commander, 1838. f-p., 19; h-p., 17.)
Henry Frederick Peakeis brother of Capt. Thos. Ladd Peake, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, 8 Feb. 1811, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Defiance 74, Capt. Rich. Raggett. In the course of the following month he was placed at the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, where he remained until 17 June, 1813. He then again embarked, on board the Rivoli 74, Capts. Graham Eden Hamond and Edw. Stirling Dickson; under the latter of whom we find him, 30 April, 1815, assisting as Midshipman at the capture, on the Mediterranean station, after a brave defence of 15 minutes, of the French frigate La Melpomène. Joining next, in 1816, the Madagascar and Maeander frigates, both commanded by Sir Jas. Alex. Gordon, he was present in the latter ship when nearly lost, in Dec. of the same year, off Orfordness. In Feb. 1817 he became Admiralty-Midshipman of the Rosario 10, commanded by his brother, Capt. Thos. Ladd Peake, at Portsmouth; where (with the exception of the following summer, which he passed in the Mediterranean on board the Ganymede 26, Capt. Hon. Robt. Cavendish Spencer, and of a subsequent unemployed interval of a few months) he continued to serve until Aug. 1820, in a similar capacity, in the Camelion 10, Capt. Wm. Jas. Mingaye, and Active 46, Capt. Sir J. A. Gordon. He then sailed for the West Indies in the Sybille 44; of which ship, bearing the flag of Sir Chas. Rowley, he was created a Lieutenant 5 Feb. 1821. He returned home in the following June, and was afterwards appointed – 26 Nov. 1823 and 5 March, 1825, as a Supernumerary-Lieutenant, to the Ramillies and Hyperion Coast-Blockade ships, Capts. Wm. M‘Culloch and Hugh Pigot – and, 2 Dec. 1828, as Senior, to the Comet 18, Capt. Alex. Albert Sandilands, fitting for the East Indies, whence he returned at the close of 1832. He has since been on half-pay. His promotion to the rank of Commander took place 28 June, 1838.
With the permission of the Admiralty, Commander Peake was for some time employed under the Spanish and Portuguese Governments.
PEAKE. (Captain, 1822. f-p., 24; h-p., 25.)
Thomas Ladd Peake is son of the late Sir Henry Peake, Kt., who filled the office of Surveyor of the Navy from 27 June, 1806, until 25 Feb. 1822; and brother of Commander Wm. Peake, who was killed, and his ship, the Peacock of 18 guns and 122 men, sunk, in a desperate action with the American sloop Hornet of 20 guns and 165 men, 24 Feb. 1813. Capt. Peake’s youngest brother, James, is married to a sister of the present Commander Henry Eden, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, towards the close of 1798, on board the Redbridge schooner, Lieut.Commander Geo. Hayes. He next, in the course of 1799, joined the Canada 74, Capt Hon. Michael De Courcy, and Renown of similar force, bearing the flag of Sir John Borlase Warren; under whom, in the following year, he accompanied the expedition to Ferrol, and in 1801 that to Egypt. At the former place he served on shore with the army under Sir Jas. Pulteney. On his return to England at the close of 1804, in the Kent 74, with Capt. John Chambers White, who had latterly had command of the Renown, he was received as a Supernumerary on board the Zealand 64, flag-ship at the Nore of Admiral Douglas. He was nominated, 4 Jan. 1805, Sub-Lieutenant of the Bloodhound 12, Lieut.-Commander Henry Richardson; was made a full Lieutenant, 8 May following, into the Majestic 74, flag-ship of Admiral Thos. Macnamara Russell in the North Sea; and was subsequently, in 1807 and 1809, appointed to the Clio 18, Capt. Thos. Folliott Baugh, and Victorious 74, Capts. Graham Eden Hamond and John Talbot. In the latter ship he participated in the Walcheren operations of 1809; and on 21 Feb. 1812, the Victorious being at the time in company with the Weasel 18, he shared as First-Lieutenant in a most gallant conflict of two hours and a half [errata 1], which terminated in the capture, with a loss to the former of 27 men killed and 99 wounded, and to the enemy of 400 killed and wounded, of the French 74 Rivoli, whose consorts, three brigs and two gun-boats, were at the same time defeated.[2] He was in consequence ad-
- ↑ He was the author of several popular works, and a contributor to many of the periodicals of the day.
- ↑ In the early part ot the action Capt. Talbot, being severely wounded, was placed hors de combat. “The exertions, however, of Mr. Peake,” he informs us in his official despatch, “prevented his inability from proving of any detriment to his Majesty’s service,” – Vide Gaz. 1812, p. 852.
