again applied for employment, and in the month of June was appointed to the Elizabeth, a new third rate. In Nov. following, he accompanied a squadron under Sir W. Sidney Smith to the coast of Portugal, for the purpose of blockading Lisbon, then about to be occupied by the French[1], and in which port a Russian squadron under Admiral Siniavin had taken refuge. Subsequent to his arrival off the Tagus, he was detached to examine into the resources and military condition of the Azores, under the idea that it might be necessary to form some establishments at those islands, of which he made a very interesting report.
Early in 1808, the late Sir Charles Cotton assumed the command on the Lisbon station, and Captain Curzon continued to be employed in the blockade of the Tagus until the period of the Convention of Cintra, when the British entered that river according to the articles of capitulation, and the Elizabeth was attached to the squadron under Rear-Admiral Tyler, ordered to escort the Russian ships to England[2].
In Jan. 1809, we find Captain Curzon superintending the embarkation of Sir John Moore’s army at Corunna; and for his services on that occasion he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, in common with the other officers employed on that important service[3]. The Elizabeth was soon afterwards sent to strengthen the naval force at Rio Janeiro, in consequence of a French squadron being supposed to have gone to the Rio de la Plata. Having formed a junction with Rear-Admiral de Courcy, and examined the ports along the coast of Brazil and the above mentioned river, without hearing any thing of the enemy, Captain Curzon returned to Rio Janeiro, and thence with the trade from that place and Bahia under his protection to England, where he
- ↑ See p. 319.
- ↑ At the end of March 1808, Sir Charles Cotton had reason to expect that the Russian squadron, in consequence of a disagreement with the French, would come out. This expectation induced him, early in the following month, to make overtures for a conditional surrender. These, however, were unsuccessful; and it was not until the French General Junot had agreed to evacuate Portugal, that Admiral Siniavin could be induced to put the ships under his orders into the hands of the British, to be held as a deposit, until six months after the conclusion of a peace between Great Britain and Russia. See p. 432.
- ↑ See p. 335.
