am induced to
bestow on you the rank of a post-captain, in the service to which
your universal good character and conduct do credit: and for this
purpose, I have named you to the _Suffolk_, and hope soon to find a
frigate for you, as she is promised to a captain of long standing.

"KEPPEL."

Captain Pellew thus obtained every step of rank expressly as a reward of
a brilliant action in which he personally commanded; and in this
respect, and in the number and extent of his services while he remained
in the lower grades of his profession, he was singular, not only among
his contemporaries, but perhaps in the annals of the navy.

On the 4th of June, in the absence of Captain Macbride, of the forty-gun
frigate _Artois_, Captain Pellew assumed the temporary command of that
ship, and sailed two days after to cruize on the coast of Ireland. Her
master was Mr. James Bowen, so highly distinguished in the battle of the
1st of June, when he was master of the fleet, and who afterwards became
a retired commissioner, and rear admiral. On the 1st of July, the
_Artois_ fell in with a French frigate-built ship, the _Prince of
Robego_, of twenty-two guns, and 180 men; and after a four hours'
pursuit, and a running fight of half an hour with the chase guns, ran
alongside, and took her. Captain Pellew gladly availed himself of this
opportunity to show his grateful respect to the memory of his
benefactor, Captain Pownoll, by giving the agency to his brother-in-law,
Mr. Justice, one of the officers of Plymouth-yard: and the plea of
gratitude which he offered to his own brother, was felt to be quite
conclusive. Captain Macbride wished to appoint an agent of his own; but
Captain Pellew asserted his right, as the actual captor, with so much
temper and firmness, that the other at length gave way. He had known
Captain Pellew from early childhood, having been his father's intimate
friend, and quite understood his character, of which he now expressed an
opinion in language less refined than emphatic. "Confound the fellow,"
said he, "if he had been bred a cobbler, he would have been first in the
village."

Peace left him without employment for the next four years. In 1783, he
married Susan, daughter of J. Frowd, Esq., of Wiltshire; who survived
him nearly four years. For a short time after his marriage, he lived at
Truro; but when his elder brother became collector