and appointed to the Active frigate, on the East India station, in 1782. His exemplary conduct as first Lieutenant of the St. George, when a mutiny existed on board that ship, off Cadiz, in July 1797, and for Which he was deservedly promoted to the rank of Commander, has already been noticed in the first part of this volume, at p. 23, et seq. He subsequently commanded the Winchelsea, a 32-gun frigate, armed en flute, and employed in the conveyance of troops to Jamaica and the Mediterranean; on which latter station his services obtained him the gold medal of the Turkish Order of the Crescent. He formed part of the procession at the funeral of Britain’s idol, the immortal Nelson; and afterwards served as Captain of the Boadicea frigate, and Raisonable 64, in the Indian seas.
Agent.– ___ M‘Inerheny, Esq.
FRANCIS HOLMES COFFIN, Esq
[Post-Captain of 1802.]
This officer obtained a Lieutenant’s commission in 1791 , and distinguished himself when serving on shore with a detachment of seamen at the reduction of the Cape of Good Hope, by the naval and military forces under the orders of Sir George Keith Elphinstone, and Major-General Craig, but more particularly on the 8th Aug. 1795, when the Dutch Commandant, endeavouring to regain a position wrested from him on the preceding day, drew out his whole force from Cape town, together with eight pieces of cannon. On that occasion, says the Major-General, “Captain Hardy and Lieutenant Coffin crossed the water with the seamen and marines under their command, received the enemy’s fire without returning a shot, and manoeuvred with a regularity that would not have discredited veteran troops.”
Lieutenant Coffin, at that time belonging to the Rattlesnake sloop of war, was afterwards removed to the Monarch, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of the commander-in-chief, by whom he was employed as the bearer of the correspondence between himself and the Dutch Rear-Admiral, Lucas, relative to the surrender of a squadron belonging to the Batavian republic, in Saldanda Bay[1].
- ↑ See Vol, I, pp. 47-51, N.B. Since the publication of Lord Keith’s
