of a gun, Lieutenant Debenham was obliged to resign the command of the Furious, and from that period to use crutches, until Aug. 1808. He then obtained employment as an agent of transports, in which capacity he was present at the battle of Corunna, and subsequent reduction of Walcheren. During the embarkation of Sir John Moore’s gallant army, he saved from destruction several transports, which, being under the fire of the enemy’s artillery, would, but for his exertions, have been lost on the rocks or set on fire, in the confusion which then existed.
In Feb. 1810, Lieutenant Debenham was appointed to the command of the Deptford tender, employed between Limerick and Plymouth, under the orders of Captain James Murray Northey, regulating officer at the former port, who bears strong testimony to his exemplary conduct on every occasion, during a period of nearly two years and a half. His last appointment was, in June, 1813, to be an agent of transports employed on the north coast of Spain, where he continued until Oct. 1814. The important services which he there performed are thus detailed by himself in two memorials, one presented to our late sovereign in July 1819, the other to his illustrious brother the Lord High Admiral, April 21st, 1828.
“While on this duty, he was employed in such a manner as can hardly fall to the lot of any other officer belonging to the transport department; for he was entrusted with the superintendence of two stations at a distance of eighteen miles asunder, and without the aid of any immediate superior to whom he might apply, or martial law to intimidate those with whom he had to deal, or even so much as a boat’s crew whom he could at any time call together: he had to compel the refractory, to encourage the diffident, to stimulate the idle, and to instruct the ignorant masters of transports in duties to which they were not only adverse, but which were both difficult and dangerous in themselves: and often to incur a personal responsibility which he might easily have avoided, and from the consequences of which he might have expected to be involved in ruinous law-suits, had the result been different to what he contemplated; but from which responsibility, if he had shrunk back, the public service would have been very materially hindered.
“As a proof of which, he will mention his having, in the middle of a stormy night, gone about to press men, with whose aid he removed a large Swedish ship which had anchored, where, had she continued only one hour longer, she would have lain aground ten days, and most effectually blocked up the mouth of the haven of Socoa, from whence the military supplies for the siege of Bayonne were furnished; he was obliged to remove her to a
