but singular as it may appear, he had been included in the grand Trafalgar promotion, which took place only seven days before he made this very valuable and important capture, and of which he was at that time ignorant. He was consequently superseded in the command of the Cruiser, immediately on his arrival in port with the prizes.
From this period. Captain Hancock remained on shore until Aug. 1807, when he embarked, with the permission of the Admiralty, as a volunteer on board the Agamemnon 64, forming part of the grand armament then preparing to sail for Copenhagen; but on his arrival in the Sound he had the mortification to find that he had put himself to a great deal of unnecessary inconvenience and expense; as by a clause in the Naval Regulations and Instructions, then recently established, the commander-in-chief was prevented from appointing an officer on half pay to a ship, or to give him any commission or appointment whatever, “without express directions for that purpose from the Admiralty[1].”
Captain Hancock, however, availed himself of an offer made by General John M‘Farland, and served on shore with that officer during the whole of the siege and bombardment which terminated in the surrender of the Danish navy[2].
Shortly after his return from Copenhagen, the subject of of this memoir was appointed acting Captain of the Lavinia frigate, in which ship he continued about a year, on the Oporto, Rochefort, and Mediterranean stations. In the spring of 1809, he assumed the temporary command of the Christian VII.; and on the 18th Nov. 1810, after declining two other acting appointments, we find him receiving a commission for the Nymphen, rated at 36, but mounting 42 guns. The important services performed by him whilst in this frigate have never been known to the public, and we shall therefore feel the greater pleasure in noticing them.
- ↑ See Naval Instructions, Anno 1806, sec. 4, chap. 2, art. 5, p. 82. – N.B. It is somewhat singular, that those very instructions should have been drawn up by Admiral Gambier, commander-in-chief of the armament sent against Copenhagen.
- ↑ See Vol. I., pp. 78–83.
