Finding himself now possessed of much unwished-for leisure, Captain Monke compiled and, in 1799, published, “A Vocabulary of Sea Phrases and Terms of Art, used in Seamanship and Naval Architecture,” hoping that the objects which it embraced would be found of real utility to the maritime world in general, and to British naval officers in particular. The work to which we allude consists of two pocket volumes, in English and French, containing all the orders necessary for working a ship, and carrying on the duty, as well at sea as in port; by means of which an English prize-master, however ignorant of the French nautical language, may navigate a ship of that nation with part of her own crew, whenever circumstances, for awhile, prevent a sufficient number of British seamen from being put on board for that purpose.
In July 1808, Captain Monke was appointed to the Centurion 50, armed en flute, and ordered to convey naval stores to Halifax. We subsequently find him commanding the Statira frigate, pro tempore, and assisting at the reduction of Guadaloupe[1]. His post commission bears date Jan. 12, 1810.
We now arrive at the unfortunate conclusion of Captain Monke’s professional career. In Oct. 1810, he assumed the command of the Pallas 32, and proceeded from the Frith of Forth to cruise for a month on the coast of Norway, where his boats, under the directions of Lieutenant M‘Curdy, captured, in the Cove of Siveraag, two Danish cutter privateers of very inconsiderable force. Returning to Leith roads, pursuant to his orders, he had the misfortune to be wrecked near Dunbar, in the night of Dec. 18; his pilots having mistaken the light issuing from a lime-kiln, on the Scotch coast, for the light on the Isle of May, and the latter for that on the Bell Rock. It is not a little singular that, at the very same time, the Nymph 36, Captain Edward Sneyd Clay, though not in company with the Pallas, went ashore, under exactly similar circumstances, and was also totally wrecked within a
