SIR MANLEY DIXON,
Vice-admiral of the Red; and Knight Commander of the most honourable Military Order of the Bath.
At the latter end of the American war we find this officer commanding the Jamaica sloop, at the island of that name; and in 1783, the Tobago, a vessel of similar description, on the same station. He was promoted to the rank of Post-Captain, Nov. 22, 1790; and at the commencement of the contest with revolutionary France, appointed to the Porcupine of 24 guns, in which ship he cruized for some time on the coast of Ireland; and afterwards obtained the command of l’Espion, a fine frigate, employed in channel service during a period of about two years.
Captain Dixon’s next appointment was to the Lion, a 64-gun ship, in which he proceeded to the Mediterranean; and on the 15th July, 1798, being off Carthagena, on his way to the coast of Egypt to reinforce Sir Horatio Nelson’s squadron, he fell in with four large Spanish frigates. At the time the enemy were first discovered, the Lion was steering east, under a press of sail. Captain Dixon instantly resolved to bring them to action in the closest manner possible, and communicated the same to his officers and ship’s company; which being received with the most cheering symptoms of satisfaction by all, he took in the studding-sails and cleared for action. The battle commenced with a heavy cannonade on both sides. The third frigate from the van having lost her fore-top-mast, Captain Dixon thought that by directing his attack against her he should secure a general action, supposing that the noble minded Spaniard would never leave a friend in distress; steering therefore for the crippled ship, which was now become the sternmost in the line of battle, the other three frigates tacked in succession, and passed the Lion within musket-shot; but as their line after tacking was by no means a close one, they each received a well-directed broadside from her; the good effect of which was very visible by their standing a considerable time on the same tack.
Captain Dixon still continued to pursue the same ship he had before made his principal object; which sailing nearly as well as the Lion, did much damage to her rigging by her stern chasers. The other three frigates made a second attempt to support her, but not so close as the former, and were each fully repaid by a destructive broadside. At length the Lion closed with the crippled ship, and after a warm action compelled her to strike, and she was taken possession of in the face of her consorts. She proved to be the Santa Dorothea, of 42 guns and 370 men, 52 of whom were either killed or wounded. The others were the Pomona, bearing a Commodore’s broad pendant, the Santa Casilda, and Proserpine, of 42 guns and 350 men each. Seeing the fate of their companion, they made sail and escaped; the disabled state of the Lion preventing her from pursuing them. The manly and spirited conduct of Captain Dixon and those under his command, in and subsequent to the action, reflected on them great honour, and obtained the applause which they so justly merited. The Lion had only 2 men wounded.
Captain Dixon arrived in Aboukir Bay on the 26th of the following month, but found there only a few ships left by Sir Horatio Nelson to guard the coast, that officer having already ably executed the business on which he had visited the shores of Egypt.
In the course of the following year, the Lion captured two French corvettes, one of 16 guns, the other of 10, conveying despatches from the Directory to Buonaparte. Captain Dixon was subsequently stationed off Malta, with a squadron of ships of war, in order to prevent succours from being thrown into the island, and to watch the motions of the French ships lying in the harbour of Valette.
About midnight, on the 30th March, 1800, the Penelope frigate, which had been ordered by Captain Dixon to keep close in shore for the purpose of watching the enemy more narrowly, discovered a line-of-battle ship under a crowd of sail, steering to the N.E. The necessary signals being immediately made, the squadron which was at anchor, cut or slipped their cables, and went in pursuit, guided solely by the cannonading of the Penelope. At day-break on the 31st, the Lion had arrived within gun-shot of the enemy, who appeared in great confusion, his main and mizen-top-masts and main-yard having been shot away by the Penelope, whose raking broadsides had been poured in with great effect during the night.
Steering between the British frigate and her crippled opponent, and so near to the latter that the yard-arms of the two ships barely passed clear, the Lion ranged up on the larboard side of the enemy, fired a destructive broadside of three round shot in each gun, and then luffing up across the bow, received the Frenchman’s jib-boom between the main and mizen rigging. The combatants, however, remained entangled but a few minutes, and Captain Dixon, whose object it was to avoid either being boarded, or exposing himself to the more powerful broadside of the enemy, took a position on his bow which he maintained, and, aided occasionally by the Penelope, kept up a steady cannonade for about half an hour, when the Lion became unmanageable and dropped astern; still firing, however, as did also the frigate, whenever an opportunity presented itself.
In about fifty minutes after the commencement of the action, the Foudroyant of 88 guns came up under a press of canvas, and hailed the enemy to strike; which being declined, a furious combat ensued, the Lion and Penelope frequently doing great execution; and it was not until the French ship had become an unruly hulk, having lost all her masts, that her colours were hauled down. She proved to be the Guillaume Tell of 86 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Decrès, the only remaining ship of the French fleet which was in the action of Aug. 1st, 1798[1].
A more heroic defence than that of the Guillaume Tell is not to be found among the records of naval actions. Of her crew, which, according to Captain Dixon’s official letter, amounted to 1000 men[2], two hundred are represented to have been killed or wounded. The following appears to have been the loss sustained by each of the British ships engaged; Lion 8 killed 38 wounded; Foudroyant 8 killed 69 wounded; Penelope 1 killed 3 wounded. The Guillaume Tell was added to the British navy, and still appears on the list, under the name of the Malta.
Soon after the capture of that fine ship, Captain Dixon, who deserves the greatest credit for having so boldly approached her in a vessel so vastly inferior both in guns and men[3], was removed into the Génereux of 74 guns, and continued to be employed in the blockade of Malta until the surrender of that island, on the 5th Sept. in the same year[4]. We subsequently find him stationed at Minorca, during the absence of Lord Keith on an expedition against the French in Egypt.
Our officer arrived at Portsmouth, from the Mediterranean, Aug. 13, 1802. On the renewal of hostilities in the following spring, he was appointed to the Sceptre of 74 guns, and in the ensuing year, to the Queen, 98, in which ship he joined the Channel fleet. On the 28th April, 1808, he was advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral, and soon after appointed to a command in the Baltic, with his flag in the Temeraire, another second rate. Early in 1812, being nominated Commander-in-Chief at Brazil, he proceeded thither in the Montague, 74, and continued on that station during the remainder of the war. He returned to Plymouth in the Valiant, July 8, 1815.
His promotion to the rank of Vice-Admiral took place Dec. 4, 1813; and on the 12th Aug., 1819, he was nominated a K.C.B.
Sir Manley has been twice married. His first lady died in 1810; she was taken ill while in the act of serving some friends at a dinner party, at Deal, and expired almost immediately. The present Lady Dixon is a daughter of Gabriel Jeffreys, of Swansea, Esq. His brother is a Major-General in the Royal Artillery.
- ↑ See note at p. 183.
- ↑ A letter in Clarke and M‘Arthur’s Life of Lord Nelson augments the Guillaume Tell’s crew to 1220 men; but her officers appear to have stated the number actually on board, at 919.
- ↑ The Lion had not more than 300 men on board at the time of the action.
- ↑ See p. 281.