boats, Rear-Admiral Pole called off the ships engaged, got under weigh, and stood to sea, fully convinced that fire-ships alone could have been brought forward with any reasonable prospect of success.
On the Rear-Admiral’s return from the above service, the approbation of his conduct by the Board of Admiralty was marked by his appointment to be Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Newfoundland, to which station he proceeded in the Agincourt, of 64 guns; but on the indisposition, and urgent desire of Lord Nelson to be recalled from the Baltic, he was appointed to relieve his early friend in that important command, during the summer of 1801. On the first day of that year he had been advanced to the rank of Vice-Admiral.
To succeed such an officer as the heroic Nelson, and at so critical a moment, was a duty which they who know how his Lordship was regarded can best appreciate; and no one in the Navy knew him better, or loved him with greater sincerity, than his successor; whose good fortune it was, by prudence and sagacity, to disperse every remnant of the northern confederacy, which had taken place under the auspices of Paul I., and to complete the work which his Lordship had so ably commenced[1]. In returning from that station, the Vice-Admiral detached a part of his fleet, under the command of Sir T. Graves, through the Sound; whilst he himself determined to make the experiment of passing the Great Belt, with nine sail of the line, which he accomplished in the most satisfactory manner, his flag-ship, the St. George, of 98 guns, leading; and as the wind was adverse, his ships were under the necessity of working through, by which means that Channel, which had never before been passed by line-of-battle ships, was effectually explored, thereby fully establishing, for the first time, the importance and practicability of this navigation, which has since been of advantage to our operations in those seas.
Vice-Admiral Pole was next appointed to the command of the squadron off Cadiz; whither he immediately repaired in the St. George, and remained watching that port until the
- ↑ For the particulars of the attack made upon the Danish line of defence before Copenhagen, April 2, 1801, see Sir Thomas Foley, Vice-Admiral of the Red.
