1798[1]. The Achille was principally employed blockading Brest; and the Edgar led the van of Nelson’s division, off Copenhagen, April 2, 1801: her loss on that glorious day amounted to 31 killed, and 111 wounded.
The first Lieutenant of the Edgar having fallen in the battle, Mr. Phillimore was immediately appointed to fill the vacancy thereby occasioned; and he appears to have continued with Captain Murray, on the Baltic station, until the peace of Amiens; after which we find him serving as senior Lieutenant of the Gannet sloop of war. His promotion to the rank of Commander took place May 10, 1804.
In 1805, Captain Phillimore was appointed to the Cormorant sloop, on the North Sea station; and towards the close of 1806, he removed from her into the Bellette brig, of 18 guns, which vessel was employed under the orders of Commodore Owen, when that officer made an attack upon the Boulogne flotilla, in order to try the utility of Congreve’s rockets; an experiment already noticed at pp. 132–134 of our second volume.
Captain Phillimore subsequently convoyed two transports, laden with provisions and military stores, to Colberg, a town in Prussian Pomerania, then vigorously besieged by the French, and obstinately defended by the celebrated Blucher, who was thus enabled to hold out until a negociation for peace was entered into, at Tilsit[2].
Returning from Colberg to join Admiral Gambier’s fleet off Copenhagen, Captain Phillimore witnessed the defeat of the Danish troops at Kioge, Aug. 29, 1807; on which occasion upwards of 60 officers and 1500 men were taken prisoners by
- ↑ See Nav. Chron. Vol. I. p. 86.
- ↑ Colberg and Graudenz were the only Prussian fortresses that successfully resisted their besiegers. The attempt to reduce Colberg proved fatal to thousands of the enemy. If all the governors had been animated with the fidelity and persevering courage of Blucher, the issue of the war between Frederick and Napoleon might have been very different. It was at this siege that Colonel Schill, whose heroism, loyalty, and patriotism shone forth so conspicuously afterwards in the north of Germany, first attracted the attention and admiration of hit countrymen.
