On the 4th of the ensuing month, Admiral Young wrote to Lieutenant Devon as follows:
“I have had the pleasure, this morning, of desiring Lieutenant Banks to convey to you and to those who were with you, the expression of the Admiralty’s approbation of your conduct in the capture of the Danish gun-boats, which does indeed well deserve to be approved of. I am afraid that gun-boats make but bad prizes; but whatever these may produce, I have desired my agent to distribute my share of it among the crews of the two boats by which they were taken, and I heartily wish it were much more than I fear it will be.”
Extract of the Admiral’s letter to Lieutenant Banks.
“I desire you will inform Lieutenant Devon, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty are pleased with his gallant conduct, and with that of the men who were with him. I have great pleasure in transmitting this expression of their Lordships’ approbation of so very gallant an achievement.”
In a memorial subsequently forwarded by Lieutenant Devon to the Admiralty, he informed their lordships that since Jan. 1st, 1812, he had been nine times personally engaged with the French and Danes, and that he had captured, in addition to the privateer, custom-house cutter, and armed galliots already mentioned, nearly thirty merchant vessels of different descriptions. On the 4th May, in the same year, he was at length promoted to the rank of commander; and, in farther testimony of their lordships’ approval of his very meritorious services, the Brevdrageren was rated a sloop of war, and continued under his command.
Before the end of May, 1813, Cuxhaven and Hamburgh were again in the possession of the enemy, as will be seen by reference to our memoir of Captain John M‘Kerlie, who then commanded on the Heligoland station. In Oct. following, we find the Brevdrageren attached to the squadron under Captain Arthur Farquhar, of the Desirée frigate, who had been sent to co-operate with the allied forces in the neighbourhood of the German rivers. Previous to his joining that officer, Captain Devon had had two interviews with Viscount Melville, on the subject of the said service; and on one of these occasions he was called to London express, by
