of which are pointed out and explained by him in a long letter to Sir George Cockburn, G.C.B., dated April 21, 1822.
Captain King’s youngest son, a midshipman on board H.M.S. Pyramus, died at Antigua, of the yellow fever, Feb. 7, 1822. His daughter is married to the Rev. Mr. Heath, late one of the Masters of Eton College.
Agents.– Messrs. Maude.
PRINGLE STODDART, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1807.]
Commenced his naval career in 1782, as a Midshipman in the Hon.E.I. Company’s service; and made his first voyage under the command of a relation, who was a Lieutenant in the royal navy.
The first man of war that Mr. Stoddart joined was the Exeter 64, commanded by Captain John Samuel Smith, and forming part of the squadron under Sir Edward Hughes, on the East India station. This was in April, 1783; and on the 20th June following he bore a share in an action with Mons. Suffrein, off Cuddalore; on which occasion the Exeter had 4 men killed and 9 wounded[1].
Mr. Stoddart returned home in the Africa 64, Captain Robert M‘Douall; and arrived in England about April 1784. We next find him in the Venus frigate, on the Irish station, where he continued for a period of two years.
The Vestal being paid off in 1786, Mr. Stoddart then entered the Russian navy as a Lieutenant; and we believe that he was engaged in most of, if not all the battles, that took place during the war between Catharine and Gustavus, three of which desperate encounters have been noticed at p. 292 et seq. of our first volume.
Early in 1791, when the conduct of Russia rendered it necessary for Great Britain to fit out a powerful fleet, Mr. Stoddart was received as a Midshipman on board the Formidable 98, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral the Hon. J. Leveson Gower; and after the settlement of that dispute, he re-en-
