Mr. James Pickard, junior, was born at Birmingham, in 1781; and entered the royal navy, at the age of fifteen years, as midshipman on board the Diana frigate. Captain Jonathan Faulkner, then on the Irish station, where she re-captured several merchant vessels, and was more than once chased by part of a powerful French fleet, in the vicinity of Bantry Bay.
In the following year, 1797, Mr. Pickard joined the Boadicea frigate. Captain (now Sir Richard G.) Keats; under whom he served, in that ship and the Superb 74, until ordered by Lord Nelson to act as lieutenant of the Canopus 80, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral (afterwards Sir Thomas) Louis, April 2d, 1805. This appointment was confirmed by the Admiralty, on the 11th Oct. following, previous to which he had accompanied our great hero to Egypt and the West Indies, in pursuit of the combined French and Spanish fleets. The manner in which the Canopus was employed, between Aug. 1805 and June 1806, has been stated in Vol. II. Part I. pp. 279–281; but we should have added, that it was the share she bore at the battle of St. Domingo, which gained Rear-Admiral Louis a baronetcy, and her captain (F. W. Austen) a companionship of the Bath.
After undergoing a thorough repair at Plymouth, the Canopus, then commanded by Captain (afterwards Commissioner) T. G. Shortland, and still bearing the flag of Sir Thomas Louis, proceeded in company with other ships to the coast of France, for the purpose of intercepting a French, squadron, to which Jerome Buonaparte was attached as a capitaine de vaisseau. On the 27th of Sept. 1806, a remarkably fine frigate, le Presidente, of 44 guns and 330 men, was captured. Towards the end of the same year the Canopus was sent to Constantinople, from whence Sir Thomas Louis brought away the Russian embassy, when war broke out between Turkey and the Czar. On the 19th Feb. and 3d Mar. 1807, she led the van of Sir John T. Duckworth’s squadron through the passage of the Dardanelles, suffering greatly in her rigging, and receiving several immense shot, or rather blocks of granite, in her hull: the total loss she sustained, during the whole of the operations in that quarter,
