James Brine, successively in the Surprise sloop of war[1], Alcmene frigate, and Belliqueux, of 64 guns, till December 1781, when he was removed into the flag ship of the late Lord Hood, who made him a Lieutenant on the 14th of the following month.
The Stormont sloop, to which vessel Mr. M‘Kinley was appointed on his promotion, being captured at Demerara before he could join her, he returned to the Barfleur, and did duty as a Lieutenant on board that ship in the battles between Rodney and De Grasse, April 9 and 12, 1782. On the 19th of the same month he was removed into the Champion, 24, commanded by Captain Alexander Hood, with whom he returned to England in l’Amiable frigate, about July 1783.
During the ensuing long peace, Lieutenant M‘Kinley was appointed in succession to the Thorn sloop of war. Captain Lechmere; Edgar 74, Captain (afterwards Lord) Duncan; Trimmer brig of 16 guns, Captain Charles Tyler; Illustrious 74, and Formidable of 98 guns, bearing the flag of his patron Admiral Gower; and Alcide 74, Captain Robert Linzee.
At the commencement of the French revolutionary war in 1793, the Alcide was ordered to the Mediterranean station, where Captain Linzee hoisted a broad pendant, on being appointed to the command of a squadron sent from Toulon to co-operate with the Corsican patriots under General Paoli. An account of his proceedings will be found in our memoirs of Admiral Wolseley and Captain Hugh Downman.
On the 11th April, 1794, Commodore Linzee was advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral; and when, in consequence of his promotion, he hoisted his flag in the Windsor Castle of 98 guns, Lieutenant M‘Kinley accompanied him into that ship, where they continued till November following[2].
In April 1795, the subject of this memoir was appointed to the command of the Liberty, a 14-gun brig, stationed at Guernsey and Jersey. On the 17th Mar. 1796, he distin-
- ↑ The Surprise was formerly the American privateer Bunker’s Hill, of 13 guns. Being taken by the British about the same time that the Ceres fell into the hands of the enemy, she was commissioned in her room, by Admiral Barrington’s first Lieutenant, Mr. James Brine, who died a flag officer in 1814.
- ↑ See p. 91.
