surrender of a Russian squadron that had sought refuge in the Tagus, up to which period, in the arduous duties of a tediously protracted blockade, during times of eventful import, and services of considerable magnitude, the Admiral received the most effectual aid from the effective exertions of Captain Halsted, whose advice, energy, and zeal, were eminently conspicuous and exemplary. Our officer returned to England with Sir Charles Cotton in the Hibernia, of 120 guns, in Dec. 1808. He was advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, July 31, 1810; Vice-Admiral, June 4, 1814; and nominated a K.C.B., Jan. 2, 1815.
Sir Lawrence W. Halsted married, in 1803, a daughter of Sir Edward Pellew, Bart., (now Viscount Exmouth).
Residence.– Phoenix Lodge, Alton, co. Hants.
army, the battles which were fought, the change of commanders, and the Convention of Cintra that followed, are circumstances which have been often before the public. It should be known, however, that bad as that convention was, mortifying and degrading as it was to the feelings of Britons, it received considerable and important amendments from the naval Commander-in-Chief, who thrice returned it to its projectors unexecuted. The essential articles of this treaty were, that the French troops in Portugal, with their arms and equipments, should, at the expense of the British government, be transported to France, and not be considered as prisoners of war, and that they should be secured in all their private property of every description, by which was meant what they had plundered from the Portugueze. It was also stipulated, that the Spanish troops detained as prisoners on board ships in the Tagus, should be delivered to the British military commander, Sir Hew Dalrymple, who engaged to obtain from Spain the restoration of the French subjects detained in that country, without having been taken in battle. The seventh article of the preliminary treaty, by which the Russian fleet in the Tagus was to be allowed either to remain unmolested in that river, or to return home, was rejected by Sir Charles Cotton, who entered into a separate convention with Vice-Admiral Siniavin, by which the latter surrendered his ships with their stores, to be sent to England, and held as a deposit, till six months after a definitive peace between Great Britain and Russia.
The intelligence of the Convention of Cintra was received with general dissatisfaction in England, where the victory of Vimeira, gained by Sir Arthur Wellesley over General Junot, Aug. 21, 1808, had excited sanguine expectations of the unconditional surrender of the French army; and a formal disapprobation of its terms on the part of the British monarch was communicated to Sir Hew Dalrymple.
