Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/298

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French East Indiaman, Duc de Chartres, laden with military stores, off Ushant on 18 Aug., and was shortly after advanced to the Romney, of 50 guns. After the peace he commanded the Seahorse frigate in the Mediterranean, and was employed in one of the constantly recurring negotiations with the North African corsairs. He next had command of the Crown, 44 guns, on the coast of Guinea, and in 1754–5, in the Norwich, accompanied Commodore Keppel to North America. In 1757 he commanded the Achilles, 60 guns, under Sir Edward Hawke, in the expedition to Basque Roads; on 29 May 1758, whilst cruising in company with the Intrepid and Dorsetshire, assisted in the capture of the Raisonnable, a French ship of 64 guns; and on 4 April 1759, still in the Achilles, whilst cruising off Cape Finisterre, he fell in with the Comte de St. Florentine, a privateer of 60 guns and nearly 500 men. This ship was returning from a lengthened and, till then, fortunate cruise on the coast of Africa and in the West Indies, but was apparently lumbered with merchandise. She was now captured in less than two hours, after a very one-sided action, in which she was dismasted and lost her captain, and 116 men killed and wounded; the Achilles having only 2 men killed and 22 wounded. Barrington afterwards joined Hawke off Brest, whence he was detached as part of a squadron ordered, under Rear-admiral Rodney, to destroy the flat-bottomed boats at Havre-de-Grâce. Rodney hoisted his flag on board the Achilles, and the objects of the expedition were successfully carried out on 4 July. The Achilles then returned to the fleet off Brest, and in September, whilst with the detached squadron in Quiberon Bay, and attempting to cut out some French ships anchored in shore, she took the ground heavily. She was got off, but was so much injured that she had to be sent home immediately. In 1760 the Achilles was one of the squadron sent out, under the Hon. John Byron, to destroy the fortifications of Louisbourg; and in 1761 was with Commodore Keppel in the operations against Belle Isle, and was sent home with despatches announcing the successful landing. In 1762 Barrington was transferred to the Hero, 74 guns, but continued in the Channel under Sir Edward Hawke, and afterwards under Sir Charles Hardy. At the peace, in 1763, he had been serving almost, if not quite, without intermission from the time of his first entry in 1741. He was now unemployed till 1768, when he was appointed to the Venus, of 36 guns, as the governor of the Duke of Cumberland, who served with him as volunteer and midshipman. In October he nominally gave up the command, to which the prince was promoted, but resumed it again after a few days, when the prince was further advanced to be rear-admiral, and hoisted his flag on board the Venus, with Barrington as his flag-captain. In 1771, on the dispute with Spain about the Falkland Islands, Captain Barrington was appointed to the Albion, 74 guns, and continued in her, attached to the Channel fleet, for the next three years. In 1777 he commissioned the Prince of Wales, also of 74 guns, and after a few months' cruising in the Channel and on the Soundings was, on 23 Jan. 1778, advanced to be rear-admiral of the white, and was sent out as commander-in-chief in the West Indies. He arrived at Barbadoes on 20 June, and was shortly afterwards joined by Captain Sawyer in the Boyne; but though war with France was then imminent, he was left without intelligence or instructions from home, and the first definite tidings that he received were in a letter from the lieutenant-governor of Dominica, dated 7 Sept., which reached him on the 12th, and ran: ‘I hasten to acquaint you that we are attacked this moment by a very considerable fleet; several line-of-battle ships with an admiral. They are supposed the Toulon fleet. … Six ships are off Roseau. … I am afraid any relief will be too late.’ All this was curiously inaccurate, for there was not at this time a single French line-of-battle ship within a couple of thousand miles. Dominica was indeed attacked, by a scratch force of 2,000 men, soldiers and volunteers, raised by the governor of Martinique, and ferried over to Dominica on board a number of country vessels, escorted by three frigates and some privateers. But Barrington was obliged to act on the erroneous information transmitted to him, and having no force capable of opposing such a fleet as was described, he went to Antigua, to take measures for the safety of that island. He then returned to Barbadoes, and was joined, on 10 Dec., by Commodore Hotham with five of the smallest ships of the line, two frigates, and a number of transports carrying 5,000 soldiers. In consultation with General Grant, commanding these, and with the commodore, it was at once determined to attempt a counter-attack on St. Lucia. The expedition sailed on the 12th, and on the 13th anchored in the Grand Cul de Sac. The troops were immediately landed, and the island was taken without difficulty, whilst the governor withdrew to the mountains, where he hoped to maintain himself until he could be relieved. The Count d'Estaing, with the Toulon fleet, had really come from Boston to the West Indies, side by side with