Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p1.djvu/21

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
10
commanders.

14 of his shipmates were killed, and he, with 30 others, wounded.

The Vigilant was paid off, at Chatham, Sept. 3d, 1781; and Mr. Bremer remained on shore from that period until April 15th, 1782, when he joined the Crocodile 24, Captain Albemarle Bertie, on the Downs station. Whilst in this ship, he was blown up and severely burnt, during an action with a Dunkirk privateer of 32 guns. On the 22d Aug. he followed Captain Bertie into the Recovery frigate, then about to accompany Lord Howe to the relief of Gibraltar; and after the performance of that service, witnessed a partial action with the combined forces of France and Spain, off Cape Spartel.

On the 24th May, 1784, Mr. Bremer, then serving under Captain Jonathan Faulknor, in the Proselyte 32, at Quebec, was discharged into the Boreas 28, Captain Horatio Nelson, for a passage to the Leeward Islands, where he appears to have been principally employed in the Berbice schooner, tender to the Adamant 60, flag-ship of Sir Richard Hughes, commander-in-chief, with whom he returned home in the autumn of 1786. His next trip was to the same station, in the Sybil 28, Captain Richard Bickerton, under whose command he continued from Mar. 7th, 1787, until Sept. 30th, 1790; when we find him drafted, with the other petty-officers of that frigate, into the Boyne 98, Captain George Bowyer, from which ship, then fitting out at Woolwich, he was at length promoted to the rank of lieutenant, by commission dated Nov. 22d, 1790. His subsequent appointments were, to the Childers sloop, Captain (now Sir Robert) Barlow, employed in the suppression of smuggling; – to the Prince 98, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Bowyer, in the Channel fleet; – to the command of the Bull-dog gun-boat, fitting out for the Jersey station; – to the Ruby 64, Captain Edwin Henry Stanhope, of which ship he became first-lieutenant after the surrender of the Cape of Good Hope; – to command, pro tempore, the Vindictive 28, one of the Dutch squadron taken in Saldanha bay; – to be first of the Director 64, Captain William (alias Bounty) Bligh, on the North Sea station; – to the