ROYAL NAVAL BIOGRAPHY.
POST-CAPTAINS of 1802–continued.
SIR CHRISTOPHER COLE,
[Post-Captain of 1802.]
Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Military Order of the Bath; Doctor of the Civil Law; Member of Parliament for Glamorganshire; and Deputy Grand Master of the Masonic Society in South Wales.
This officer is a brother of the Rev. Samuel Cole, D.D. Chaplain of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich; and of the late Dr. Cole, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Rector of Exeter College, and a Domestic Chaplain to H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence. He entered the naval service in 1780, as a Midshipman on board the Royal Oak, of 74 guns, commanded by the late Sir Digby Dent, and then about to sail for the coast of America, as part of the squadron sent thither under the orders of Rear-Admiral Thomas Graves. In the course of the same year he was removed into the Raisonable 64; and we subsequently find him serving under the patronage of the late Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Samuel Drake, Bart, in the Russell and Princessa third rates.
The Princessa formed part of the fleets under Sir Samuel Hood and Rear-Admiral Graves, in the actions off Martinique and the Chesapeake, April 29th and Sept. 5th, 1781, and on the latter occasion sustained a loss of 6 men killed and 11 wounded. She also bore a share in the memorable transactions at St. Kitt’s in Jan. 1782; and in Rodney’s battles of April 9th and 12th, 1782[1].
Mr. Cole, who had not yet completed the twelfth year of his age, was at this period the youngest of four brothers serving on the West India station, (three in the navy and one
- ↑ See vol. II., part I., pp. 62 to 65, and notes at ditto. N.B. Rear-Admiral Drake led the van division of the British fleet, and highly distinguished himself, on the glorious 12th of April. He died a Lord of the Admiralty, and M.P. for Plymouth, Oct. 19, 1789.
