midable Turkish batteries, her total loss during the whole of the operations in that quarter appears to have been only 6 men killed and 26 wounded; she however suffered greatly in her rigging, and received several immense shot, or rather blocks of granite, one of which was twenty-three inches in diameter, and weighed 546lbs.
After his retreat from the Sea of Marmora, Sir John T. Duckworth proceeded with the squadron to Egypt, and arrived there a few days subsequent to the capture of Alexandria by the military and naval forces under Major-General Fraser and Captain Benjamin Hallowell[1].
Captain Shortland left the Canopus in Sept. 1807; and for fourteen months from that period commanded the Queen of 98 guns, on the Mediterranean and Cadiz stations. In June, 1809, he joined the Valiant 74; and during the expedition up the Scheldt, we find him commanding the first division of the flotilla under Sir Richard G. Keats. From Dec. 1809 till May 1811 he served in the Iris frigate, at Cadiz, off the Western Islands, and on the Channel station. His next appointment was, in Jan. 1812, to the Royal Oak 74, bearing the flag of Lord Amelius Beauclerk, with whom he continued till the summer of 1813. In Nov. following, Captain Shortland was appointed Agent for prisoners of war at Dartmoor, where he remained about two years and a half. From April 1816, till April 1819 he superintended the ordinary in Hamoaze, and obtained the approbation of the Admiralty for his meritorious conduct during that period, as also for his zeal and ingenuity in forming a system to make telegraphic communications by shapes in lieu of buntin flags, or semaphore[2].
Captain Shortland’s three years of service as senior superintending Captain of the ordinary at Plymouth had no sooner expired, than he was nominated Comptroller-General of the Preventive Boat Service, under the direction of the Lords
- ↑ See Vol. I. p. 482.
- ↑ Captain Shortland is the author of “A Report on Azimuths and Amplitudes, with a Method to obtain the True Variation of the Compass, having the true apparent Noon given by a good Watch;” also of “A Plan recommending and shewing the facility of forming a safe anchorage at the Island of St. Michael (Azores).”
