ants of the first; the Dukes of Ferrara and Modena were the offspring of the second[1].”
The august subject of this memoir is the third son of his late Majesty George III. by his consort Sophia-Charlotte, Princess of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, and was born Aug. 21, 1765.
Amidst the various means that were employed to call forth the energy and daring spirit of the nation, at that eventful period, when the connection of our American colonies with the mother country was at length destroyed by the assistance and machinations of France, the noble conduct of George III. who entered Prince William Henry as a Midshipman in the royal navy, excited universal admiration, and produced the following encomium from the Spanish Admiral Langara: “Well does Great Britain merit the Empire of the Sea, when the humblest stations in her navy are supported by Princes of the Blood.”
His Royal Highness made his first debut in the naval service on board the Prince George, of 98 guns, under the tutelage of the late Hon. Admiral Digby, June 15, 1779. His private tutor appears to have been Dr. Majendie, the present Bishop of Bangor. The Prince George was attached to the Channel Fleet, under the orders of Sir Charles Hardy, and cruised in the Bay of Biscay until the latter end of the same year, when she accompanied Sir George B. Rodney to the relief of Gibraltar, the garrison of which place had long been subjected to the privations attendant on a close blockade[2]. That
- ↑ Gibbon’s Posthumous Works, vol. ii, p. 637.
- ↑ The British armament sailed from Spithead Dec. 26, 1779; and on the 8th of the following month captured the whole of a Spanish convoy, consisting of one 64-gun ship, (afterwards named the Prince William, in compliment to H.R.H., in whose presence she was taken,) six armed vessels belonging to the Royal Caraccas Company, and fourteen sail of transports from St. Sebastian, bound to Cadiz, laden with naval stores, provisions, &c.
Eight days after this fortunate event, chace was given to a Spanish squadron consisting of eleven line-of-battle ships and two frigates, commanded by Don Juan de Langara. A running fight took place, and was kept up during the whole of the ensuing night, in most tempestuous weather, with a heavy sea; and at two o’clock on the following morning six of the enemy’s ships had surrendered, besides one (the St. Domingo of 70 guns), that blew up at the commencement of the action. The captured ships
