During the peace which commenced in 1783, Captain Pole commanded the Crown, guard-ship; and, upon occasion of the Spanish armament, in 1790, was appointed to the Melampus, a 36-gun frigate, employed in watching the progress of any equipments which might take place in the port of Brest, with a view of seconding the efforts of the Court of Madrid. In the succeeding year, we find him in the Illustrious, of 74 guns; and about the same period he was nominated a Groom of the Bed-chamber to H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence[1].
On the commencement of the war with the French republic, in 1793, Captain Pole’s services were too valuable to be passed unnoticed; and he was, accordingly, appointed to the command of the Colossus, another third rate, and accompanied Vice-Admiral Hotham to the Mediterranean, from which station he returned to England after the evacuation of Toulon by the allied forces. He was advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, June 1, 1795.
Our officer, after serving for some time in the Channel Fleet, sailed for the West Indies, with his flag in the Colossus, as second in command to the late Sir Hugh C. Christian, and took an able part in the various important services on which the squadron under that officer’s orders was employed[2]. Im-
- ↑ In which capacity Sir Charles attended the funeral of his late Majesty.
- ↑ On the 16th Nov. 1795, Rear-Admirals Christian and Pole sailed from St. Helen’s, with a squadron of men of war, and upwards of 200 sail of West Indiamen and transports, on board of which were embarked 16,000 troops, destined to act against the French and Dutch colonies. The late period of the season to which this expedition had been protracted occasioned the most disastrous result. On the second night after they sailed, the
feet 11 inches; of the deck, 151 feet 10 inches; extreme breadth, 39 feet 4 inches; height of the middle port, when victualled for four months, 8 feet.
Captain Pole’s friend, the gallant Nelson, on perusing the unassuming manner in which the Commander of the Success spoke of this action in his official letter, observed (when writing to their former patron, Captain Locker), “I am exceedingly happy at Charles Pole’s success. In his seamanship he shewed himself as superior to the Don as in his gallantry, and no man in the world was ever so modest in his account of it.” And afterwards, in another letter to the same gentleman, Captain Nelson added,– Never was there a young man who bore his own merits with so much modesty; I esteem him as a brother.
