channel to cruise in the tracks of our homeward bound convoys. The immense value of the fleet under Captain Schomberg’s protection may be inferred from the circumstance of 2 frigates and 2 sloops being ordered by Sir Manley Dixon, commander-in-chief at Brazil, to accompany him to the northward as far as the equator; from Captain Schomberg having deemed it expedient, in consequence of the numerous American armed vessels then at sea, to exceed his instructions by withdrawing the brigs from their station and bringing them with him to England; and from the Board of Admiralty fully approving of a measure which nothing but the most pressing necessity can ever justify.
The Nisus arrived at Portsmouth in Mar. 1814, and after being docked, was preparing to join the fleet on the coast of North America, when orders suddenly arrived to put her out of commission, and to shift her masts into the Menelaus frigate, commanded by Sir Peter Parker, Bart, who was subsequently employed on the very service which Captain Schomberg had considered as marked out for himself: Sir Peter, it will be remembered, was killed near Baltimore, in Sept. 1814.
Captain Schomberg obtained the insignia of a C.B. in 1815; and was appointed to the Rochfort 80, fitting for the flag of Sir Graham Moore, April 15, 1820. He returned from the Mediterranean with that officer in Mar. 1824, and was paid off at Chatham on the 20th of the following month.
FRANCIS WILLIAM FANE, Esq
[Post-Captain of 1803.]
This officer is a son of John Fane, Esq. M.P. for Oxfordshire, cousin to John, tenth Earl of Westmoreland, by Lady Elizabeth Parker, daughter of Thomas, third Earl of Macclesfield.
In 1796, we find him serving as a Midshipman on board the Terpsichore, of 32 guns, commanded by Captain Richard Bowen, whose gallant action with the Mahonesa, a Spanish frigate of superior force, has been recorded in the preceding part of this work[1].
