Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/69

HENRY CREASE, Esq.
[Commander.]

We first find this officer serving as midshipman on board the Tonnant 80, Captain William Henry Jervis, stationed off Ferrol, in 1804^[1]. His promotion to the rank of lieutenant took place on the 31st Jan. 1806. From this period we lose sight of him until the summer of 1813, when he was appointed to the Menelaus frigate. Captain Sir Peter Parker. On the 14th Feb. 1814, he assisted at the recapture, near l’Orient, of a richly laden Spanish ship, the San-Juan-de-Baptista, mounting twenty guns, and having on board 600,000 dollars in specie.

In August 1814, the Menelaus, then under the orders of Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, was sent up the Chesapeake, above Baltimore, to create a diversion in favour of the expedition against Washington. After having frequently dislodged small bodies of American regulars and militia, by landing parties of seamen and marines. Sir Peter Parker was at length drawn into an attack upon a force which proved to be greatly his superior in numbers, and accompanied by artillery. The result is thus stated in an official letter from Lieutenant Crease to the commander-in-chief, dated off Poole’s Island, Sept. 1st, 1814:–

“Sir,– With grief the deepest it becomes my duty to communicate the death of Sir Peter Parker, Bart, late commander of H.M.S. Menelaus, and the occurrences attending an attack on the enemy’s troops on the night of the 30th ultimo, encamped at Bellair. The previous and accompanying letters of Sir Peter Parker will, I presume, fully point out the respect the enemy on all occasions evince at the approach of our arms, retreating at every attack, though possessing a superiority of numbers of five to one: an intelligent black man gave us information of two hundred militia being encamped behind a wood, distant half a mile from the beach, and described their situation, so as to give us the strongest hopes of cutting off and securing the largest part as our prisoners, destroying the camp, field-pieces, &c. and possessing also certain information that one man out of every five had been levied as a requisition on the eastern shore, for the purpose of being sent over for the protection of Baltimore, and who are now only prevented crossing the bay by the activity and vigilance

1. See Vol. III. Part I. p. 274.