loss of a man. On the 18th of June, Captain Grace, then the senior commander on the African station, reported to Sir Robert Mends, the deaths of 13 petty officers and seamen; the second lieutenant and surgeon had previously invalided, and several men were obliged to be sent home, as the only chance of saving them for future service. At this period of wretchedness and anxiety, Captain Grace was unremitting in his attention to the sick of the Cyrené, and alleviated by every means in his power the misery of their situation; nor did motives of a personal nature ever hinder him from performing what he considered as a part of his duty – that of attending to the last moments of those who fell victims to the climate. On the 4th Dec. following. Captain Grace, then just arrived at Cape Coast from a long cruise among the Cape Verd Islands and towards the shoals of Rio Grande, received intelligence of the demise of Sir Robert Mends, and an order from the Admiralty for the Cyrené’s immediate return to England; the latter transmitted to him by Captain John Filmore, of the Bann sloop, who had appointed himself to the Owen Glendower frigate, and assumed the chief command on the station, although he did not arrive within the limits thereof previous to the commodore’s death, and then only as a passenger on board the Swinger gun-brig.
Feeling that a dispute between the two senior officers of H.M. squadron, particularly at a period when Cape Coast Castle and settlement were threatened with a formidable attack by the King of Ashantee, could not be otherwise than most prejudicial to the public service. Captain Grace refrained from entering into any discussion with Captain Filmore, and forthwith returned to England, where he arrived on the 7th Feb. 1824; after encountering the most violent hurricane, near the Azores, that either himself or any person on board the Cyrené ever witnessed: during this storm, his ship was so near foundering that he was obliged, among other measures for her preservation, to throw overboard eleven guns.
On the Cyrené being taken into dock, it was found that she required extensive repairs; which were no sooner com-
