gave repeated earnests of that zeal, activity, and spirit of enterprise, by which he afterwards distinguished himself. In the action off l’Orient, June 23, 1795, Mr. Mends was a Lieutenant of the Colossus 74, and narrowly escaped death in consequence of applying the match to a gun which hung fire; on which occasion he was so dreadfully burnt by the explosion that took place, as scarcely to have preserved any skin on his body[1].
On the 3d March 1797, our officer, then commanding the Diligence of 16 guns, on the Jamaica station, fell in with, and after an action of forty-five minutes, captured la Nativetas, a Spanish ship of 500 tons, 16 guns, and 50 men. He subsequently assisted at the capture of a Spanish armed packet. His post commission bears date May 2, 1800; and he continued to serve in the West Indies, commanding successively the Abergavenny of 54 guns, Thunderer, a third rate, and Quebec frigate, until the conclusion of the war. He arrived at Plymouth in the Nereide of 36 guns, and was paid off in Sept. 1802.
Early in 1805, Captain Mends was appointed to the Sea Fencible service in Ireland; and about Sept. 1808, to the Arethusa frigate. On the 26th Nov. following, he captured the General Ernouf, a French privateer of 16 guns and 58 men. In the following year, we find him co-operating with the Spanish patriots.
On the 15th March 1809, a party of seamen and marines belonging to the Arethusa, were landed under the command of Lieutenant Hugh Pearson, and destroyed upwards of twenty heavy guns, mounted on the batteries at Lequito, defended by a detachment of French soldiers, 21 of whom were made prisoners, the rest escaped. The British had only 3 men wounded. A small vessel, laden with brandy, was found in the harbour and brought away.
Captain Mends having received information of two other vessels being up the river Andero, laden with brandy for the French army in Spain, the same party landed in the evening of the following day, and finding them aground about four miles up, destroyed their cargoes, and delivered the vessels
- ↑ See Hants Telegraph, Jan. 19, 1824, p. 2, col. 3.
