son, is the officer whose services we are about to notice. His Lordship retained the chief command on the North Sea station till the commencement of 1800; from which period he enjoyed the sweets of retirement, the delightful retrospect of a long life spent in the service of his country, the otium cum dignitate in the fullest force of the expression, till his lamented demise, which took place at Cornhill, in the county of Durham, when on his way from London to Edinburgh, Aug. 4, 1804.
The Hon. Henry Duncan was born at Gosport, in Hampshire, April 27, 1786; his father then commanding the Edgar 74, stationed at Spithead as a guard-ship.
Having evinced an early predilection for the royal navy, he was allowed to quit the High School, Edinburgh, in order to join the Lutine frigate; but happily Lord Duncan changed his mind as to the officer under whose protection he should place his son, the very evening before that ship sailed from North Yarmouth with specie for the British army in Holland, and only twenty-four hours previous to her total destruction on a sand-bank near the Texel[1].
The first ship in which Mr. Henry Duncan actually went to sea, was the Maidstone of 32 guns, commanded by Captain Ross Donnelly (an officer possessing the esteem and confidence of all his superiors), whom he joined at Spithead, about the 6th of April, 1800.
A few days after his embarkation, the subject of this memoir had a second narrow escape: a boat which he had just before left, in consequence of his obtaining leave to remain on shore, having upset on her return to the ship, by which accident one man perished, and the rest of her crew were for some time placed in a state of imminent danger.
From this period the Maidstone was employed convoying the trade to and from Quebec and Oporto, and cruising on the Havre station, till the suspension of hostilities in 1801, when Mr. Duncan removed with Captain Donnelly into the Narcissus, a new 32-gun frigate, fitted with Gover’s 24 pounders on the main-deck, and then preparing to receive
- ↑ Oct. 9, 1799. See note at p. 16 of this volume.
