med to have awakened the national vengeance, and an
armament was accordingly ordered to be prepared, he immediately offered
his services at the Admiralty; and is said to have felt not a little
mortified, at finding his application ineffectual. The fact, however,
appears to have been, that offers from commanders of longer standing had
previously been made and accepted for all the ships then meant to be
immediately commissioned. No blame, therefore, could be fairly imputed
to the Admiralty, on the occasion: and, when that business came, soon
afterwards, to be adjusted, and the ships paid off, he had reason to
congratulate himself on not having been put to expences for equipment,
which the advantages of so little actual service were quite inadequate
to repay. This, perhaps, at that period, might be no inconsiderable
consolation.

The sum finally stipulated to be paid by Spain, on this occasion,
besides restoring the vessels unjustly seized, was two hundred and ten
thousand dollars.

After two years more passed in retirement, the French revolutionary war
having extended it's baneful influence to this country, there became an
instant necessity for preparing all the strength of our navy to oppose
it's pernicious tendency. He had now, happily, no difficulty in
obtaining a ship; but, at the very commencement of the war, having made
the usual application, he immediately received a positive promise from
Lord Howe, which was handsomely performed still sooner than he had the
smallest reason to expect.

On the 26th of January 1793, he says, in a letter to his friend Captain
Locker, "Lord Hood tells me, that I am now fixed for the Agamemnon, at
Chatham; and, that whatever men are raised for her will be taken care of
on board the Sandwich."

The name of the ship having been thus fixed for the purpose of his
immediately raising men for sea, he had already sent out a lieutenant
and four midshipmen to get men at every sea-port in Norfolk. He
applied, also, to his friends in Yorkshire, and the north, who promised
to obtain him what hands they could, and deliver them over to the
regulating captains at Whitby and Newcastle. To Captain Locker, he
says--"I hope, if any men in London are inclined to enter for the
Agamemnon, you will not turn your back on them; as, though my bills are
dispersed over this country, &c. I have desired that no bills may be
stuck up in London till my commission is signed."

This was one of his delicate punctil