First Commands
After acquitting himself well, Strachan was promoted by Hughes in January 1783 to the command of the cutter HMS Lizard, and then again on 26 April 1783 to be captain of the frigate Naiad. Strachan's next appointment was in 1787 to HMS Vestal. He sailed in the spring of 1788 for China, carrying the ambassador, the Hon. Charles Alan Cathcart. Cathcart died during the journey, as Vestal passed through the Strait of Banca, and the ship returned to England. Strachan and Vestal were then ordered to the East Indies again, to join a squadron under the command of Commodore William Cornwallis. On arrival, Strachan was reassigned to HMS Phoenix. In November 1791 she was ordered to stop and search the French frigate Résolue, which was escorting a number of merchant ships believed to be carrying military supplies to support Tippu Sultan. Résolue resisted Phoenix and a brief fight ensued before Résolue struck her colours. The French captain insisted on considering his ship as a British prize, so Cornwallis ordered Strachan to tow her into Mahé and return her to the French commodore.
Read more about this topic: Sir Richard Strachan, 6th Baronet
Famous quotes containing the word commands:
“How often we read that the enemy occupied a position which commanded the old, and so the fort was evacuated! Have not the school-house and the printing-press occupied a position which commands such a fort as this?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 8:24-25.