e expressed it, "to buy ribbons for the girls." He
never afterwards employed another tradesman. When he had become a
commander-in-chief, it was his practice to prevent a deserving, but
necessitous young officer from suffering similar embarrassments, by
advancing him a sum equal to his immediate wants when he gave him a
commission.

He took command of the _Hazard_ on the 25th of July, 1780, and paid her
off in the following January, having been employed between Shields and
Leith. He held his next ship for a still shorter time. On the 12th of
March, 1782, he commissioned the _Pelican_, a French prize, and a mere
shell of a vessel; so low, that he would say his servant could dress his
hair from the deck while he sat in the cabin. He sailed from Plymouth,
on his first cruise, April 20th; and next day took a French privateer,
with which he returned to port. On the 24th he sailed again, and stood
over to the French coast. On the 28th, observing several vessels at
anchor in Bass Roads, he made sail towards them; upon which a brig and a
lugger, of ten or twelve guns each, laid their broadsides to the
entrance of the harbour. He attacked them immediately, and compelled
them to run themselves on shore under a battery, which opened on the
sloop. The _Pelican_ tacked, and stood out of the harbour, returning the
fire, and the same night arrived at Plymouth. Her loss was only two men
wounded. A heavy shot which struck her was begged by a friend, who, in a
recent letter, makes a jocular allusion to it, and says that it is still
doing service in the kitchen as a jack-weight. The action was most
important in its results, for it obtained for him that rank in which he
would rise by seniority to a flag. Had he remained a commander through
the peace, which, but for this action, in all probability he would have
done, he could not have become a flag-officer till near the close of the
revolutionary war. The country would then have lost his most valuable
services; and he would have been remembered only as a distinguished
captain. His promotion was announced to him by the First Lord in the
following terms:--

Admiralty Office. May 25, 1782.

"SIR,--I am so well pleased with the account I have received of
your gallant and seaman-like conduct in the sloop you command, in
your spirited attack on three privateers inside the Isle of Bass,
and your success in driving them all on shore, that I