East India Company’s ships tinder his protection for China, where he arrived in September; and, pursuant to his orders, remained to convoy them home. A dispute with the Chinese caused a total suspension of the trade for six weeks, but was at length happily settled without any compromise of our national honor; and the St. Albans with her valuable charge, consisting of thirteen ships, worth nearly two millions sterling, took her departure on the 2d March, and arrived in the Powns at the end of July 1810. Captain Austen’s conduct on this occasion, and the remonstrances presented by him to the Chinese government, were highly approved by the Admiralty; and the Court of Directors voted him 1000 guineas, as a testimony of the sense they entertained of his attention to the interests of the Honorable Company.
Our officer continued in the St. Albans till Sept. 1810, when he accepted an offer from Lord Gambier, to become his Captain in the Caledonia, a first rate, which ship he joined at Spithead about November following. From that period until the expiration of his Lordship’s command, he was employed in Basque Roads, and cruising off the French coast.
In July 1811, Captain Austen was appointed to the Elephant 74, attached to the North Sea fleet, commanded by Admiral Young. During the winter of 1812, he was sent with the Phoebe and Hermes under his orders, to cruise off the Western Islands; where, in company with the latter vessel, he captured the Sword Fish, an American privateer of twelve 6-pounders and 82 men. The Elephant was subsequently stationed in the Baltic, from whence she returned in Dec. 1813. She was put out of commission in May following, and Captain Austen has ever since been on half pay. He was nominated a Companion of the Bath, at the extension of that order in 1815.
Captain Austen even when a boy, was very fond of practical astronomy and hydrography, and his taste for the latter science led him on all possible occasions to employ his leisure hours in making surveys of the various places he visited, of which there are several specimens in the Hydrographical Office.
He married, in July 1806, Mary, eldest daughter of John Gibson, Esq., of Ramsgate. That lady died July 13, 1823,
