months of Jan. and Feb. 1806. Whilst at that depot, Captain Woodriffe made several applications to Talleyrand to procure his release, but without success. About June, 1807, however, he received an order, signed by Buonaparte, then in Poland, directing him to proceed immediately to England, and to take the route of St. Maloes, a town which no Englishman was at that time permitted to enter. On his arrival there he found that all his letters, directed to him at Verdun, had been forwarded from the latter place by order of the French government; and on his proceeding to engage a vessel to convey him to England, for which he expected to pay 40 or 50 guineas, he was told that one was already provided for him, free of every expence. The British government, not to be outdone in generosity, immediately released a French officer of the same rank as Captain Woodriffe, and sent him to France on terms of equal liberality. It is almost needless to say, that the sentence of the court-martial, subsequently assembled to try Captain Woodriffe for the loss of his ship, contained a most honorable acquittal of all on board of her in the action, and pronounced his conduct to have been that of “a brave, cool, and intrepid officer.”
At the close of 1808, Captain Woodriffe was appointed agent for prisoners of war at Forton, near Gosport. Towards the latter end^of the war we find him residing as Commissioner at Jamaica. One of his sons is a Commander, and another a Lieutenant, R.N. His eldest daughter married the late Lieutenant-Colonel Tomkins of the 58th regiment, and died in 1820.
Agent.– Messrs. Maude.
JOHN WENTWORTH LORING, Esq
A Companion of the most honorable Military Order of the Bath; and Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Naval College.
[Post-Captain of 1802.]
This officer is a son of the late Joshua Loring, Esq., who was permanent High Sheriff of the province of Massachusetts, previous to the American revolution; but having followed
