might thus get his rank, yet, if he were put upon half-pay, his family would be the sufferers. From all these circumstances, so honorable to Captain Hillyar, independent of his services, which every one thought would have obtained him promotion in the late war, I beg leave to submit, as an act of the greatest kindness, that as the Niger is a very fine fast sailing frigate, well manned, and in most excellent condition, she may be fitted with the Madras’s 32 carronades, which are not so heavy as her present 9-pounders, and that your Lordship would recommend her being considered as a postship. Captain Hillyar’s activity would soon complete the additional number of men, and she would be an efficient frigate. I will not venture to say more, I am sensible of your attention to merit.”
In consequence of this recommendation the Niger’s establishment was altered, and Captain Hillyar appointed to command her as a 32-gun frigate by commission dated Feb. 29, 1804. In the following autumn he discovered a very fine watering place about five miles to the westward of Porto Torres, in Sardinia, which proved essentially advantageous to the British ships employed in watching the motions of the Toulon fleet. Lord Nelson in his diary mentions, that “at the springs, about 200 yards from the beach, forty casks may be filled at the same time,” and in a letter written by him to one of the British Consuls he says “I can assure you, that we have found Pulla (the place of anchorage) the most healthy spot the fleet has ever been at. So far from a man being ill from the thousands who went on shore, they have all derived the greatest benefit from the salubrity of the air brought down by that fine river.”
On the 11th Dec. in the same year, Captain Hillyar arrived at the Admiralty with despatches from his patron, with whom we again find him serving, off Cadiz, a few days previous to the glorious battle which deprived us of our greatest hero. On the 2d May, 1806, he captured a Spanish schooner bound to la Guira with despatches; and at the latter end of 1807, assisted in escorting Sir John Moore’s army from Gibraltar to England[1]. He subsequently commanded the St. George a second rate bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Eliab Harvey on Channel service.
Captain Hillyar’s next appointment was to the Phoebe a 36-gun frigate, with a complement of 295 men and boys, which ship formed part of the naval force employed at the
