wards the end of August in the same year, his Lordship, anxious lest the Amazon should miss being present in the event of an action, wrote to her commander in the following terms:
“I hope, my dear Parker, you are making haste to join me, for the day of battle cannot be far off, when I shall want every frigate; for the French have nearly one for every ship, and we may as well have a battle royal, line-of-battle ships opposed to ships of the line, and frigates to frigates. But I am satisfied with your exertions, and be assured that I am ever faithfully yours.”
The Amazon formed part of the squadron under Nelson, when that hero pursued the combined fleets of France and Spain to the West Indies[1]; and on the 12th Sept. 1805, she captured the Principe de la Paz Spanish privateer, mounting twenty-four 9-pounders and 4 brass swivels, with a complement of 160 men. A considerable sum in specie was found on board this prize, and her capture must have been regarded as a fortunate event by the mercantile community; Captain Parker having fallen in with her eighty leagues to the westward of Scilly, at a time when many of the homeward bound Jamaica fleet were beating about the chops of the Channel, without any armed vessel to protect them, they having separated from their convoy in a heavy gale of wind.
On the 13th March, 1806, Captain Parker assisted at the capture of Rear-Admiral Linois in the Marengo of 80 guns, accompanied by la Belle Poule frigate, as appears by the following letter from Sir John Borlase Warren to the Secretary of the Admiralty:
