“In the event of your being able, without injury to the service in which you are now engaged, to proceed to Rangoon[1] in the months of May or June, either touching at Madras, for the purpose of accompanying the second division of troops from that presidency, or repairing at once to the scene of action, his Lordship in Council would anticipate the most essential benefit to the expedition, from the presence of his Majesty’s ship, and. your personal superintendence of the measures which it may he found expedient to undertake against Rangoon, and the other maritime possessions of the enemy.”
Commodore Grant was then at Bombay, in the Liffey 50, busily employed in superintending the equipment of the Asia, a new 84-gun ship, which he was anxious to despatch to England. He had previously directed Captain Frederick Marryat, of the Larne sloop, to proceed to the river Hooghly; to take the Sophie brig, Captain George Frederick Ryves, under his orders; and to follow the directions of the Supreme Government as to the best means of employing the Larne and her consort.
On the 2d April, Mr. Swinton acquainted Captains Marryat and Ryves, that the expedition under the command of Sir Archibald Campbell, being about to proceed against Rangoon, after touching at Port Cornwallis, in the Great Andaman island, he had been directed to intimate to them the request of the Governor-General in Council, that the senior officer of the sloops of war, detached by Commodore Grant to accompany the armament, should assume the naval command of it, subject to the direction of the Brigadier-General commanding the forces. “Sir Archibald Campbell,” added the secretary, “will apprise you in detail of the objects of the expedition, in which the services of the naval force will he of the most essential use; and his Lordship in Council relies with confidence on your affording that cordial and zealous co-operation, which ever distinguishes His Majesty’s navy, when employed with land forces in the service of their country.”
At the particular request of Captain Marryat, the Governor-
- ↑ The principal sea-port in the dominions of the King of Ava.
