ing been reproved by me for not using the Genoa’s springs, and having accounted for it by his inability to get the men from their guns for that purpose, it was nevertheless asserted in the ship’s log book that the springs were used; – that the account of the battle given in the Genoa’s log-book erroneously implies, that she had three Ottoman ships of the line opposed to her on her starboard side, three 60-gun frigates on her larboard side and a-head, and a double-banked frigate astern; that Captain Dickinson returned Captain Bathurst as killed, and procured the surgeon’s signature to that return, knowing that he did not die until many hours after the battle was over, and that be retained his faculties to give orders during the whole time of the battle; and that by this mis-statement he gained an honorary distinction which might not otherwise have been conferred on him; – that the refittal of the Genoa for leaving Navarin, and engaging the batteries, if requisite, was unjustifiably tardy; and that the same slackness prevailed on her way to Malta; – that the Genoa’s mizen-mast was suffered to go by the board on the 21st, the day after the battle, for want of being properly secured; – that the Genoa continued firing after the battle was over, at the risk and to the probable injury of the allied ships, until hailed from the Asia to cease.
“In farther addition to the statement in my former letter, which was confined to the object of getting Captains Baynes and Campbell placed at least upon a level in honorary distinctions with Captain Dickinson, I have now, in obedience to their Lordships’ pleasure that I should state specifically all the points of Captain Dickinson’s conduct with which I was dissatisfied, to inform their Lordships of an instance of insubordination, of which I would gladly have avoided the exposure.
“That Captain Dickinson himself presented to me a letter in the nature of what is called a ‘round robin,’ purporting to come from the crew of the Genoa, and desiring that I would appoint him in preference to any other officer to succeed Captain Bathurst as Captain of the Genoa: and it in due to myself to explain, that I was then induced to relinquish the reporting to his Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral this instance of insubordination, which your letter has now made it incumbent on me to bring forward, by Captain Dickinson’s strongly expressed contrition for errors which he said he had fallen into inadvertently; his own entreaties that I would overlook them being supported by Captains Ommanney, Spencer, and others, who united with me in an anxious desire to avoid the exposure of such misconduct in this individual instance, on an occasion where a zealous execution of the service was the general characteristic of the three combined squadrons. I have the honor to be, &c.
In another letter, dated June 24th, 1829, Sir Edward asserts, that “owing to the Genoa not using her springs, the fire of her own opponent would not have been silenced but for the
