Mr. Canning’s next appointment was, in Feb. 1804, to the Veteran 64, Captain (now Sir Richard) King, fitting out at Chatham, for the Boulogne station. In the ensuing year, he followed that officer into the Achille 74; of which ship he was fourth lieutenant at the memorable battle of Trafalgar. On his return to England, in Dec. 1805, he was appointed first of the Princess Charlotte frigate, Captain George Tobin, then at the Leeward Islands, whither he proceeded in the Mediator 44, taking with him an introductory letter to Rear-Admiral Cochrane, commander-in-chief on that station.
Shortly after Mr. Canning’s arrival at Barbadoes, the Princess Charlotte was ordered to see the homeward bound trade safe past Bermuda, and then to return to the West Indies, in company with the Unicorn frigate. Captain Lucius Hardy man. Unfortunately for her first lieutenant, the unexpected appearance of four French frigates, on the 28th May, 1806, in lat. 31° N. long. 68° 38' W., and their continuing for several days to hover about the convoy, induced the senior officer to keep the whole of the protecting force together, and thereby caused his return to England without promotion. After refitting at Plymouth, the Princess Charlotte was attached to the Irish station, from whence she sailed for Davis’s Straits, in company with the Dryad and Diana frigates. Captains Adam Drummond and Thomas James Maling. Not having had the good fortune to come across the object of their pursuit (a French squadron sent to interrupt the Greenland fishery), these ships returned home by the banks of Newfoundland, where they encountered a violent storm, in which the Diana lost her fore-mast, and the Princess Charlotte her maintop-mast, by the fall of which several persons were very severely hurt, and others, then aloft, placed in the greatest jeopardy.
Lieutenant Canning’s next appointment was to be third of the Brunswick 74, Captain Thomas Graves, which ship he commissioned at Portsmouth, early in 1807. During the siege of Copenhagen, in the autumn of the same year, he frequently commanded her boats, and displayed great activity and bravery, in preventing supplies from being thrown into
