Command
In the autumn of 1795 he was sent from Gibraltar to convoy two troopships to Barbados. On his way there he fell in with a Dutch squadron, which he kept company with, sending the transports on by themselves; finding that the Dutch were bound for the Cape of Good Hope, he carried the intelligence to Sir George Elphinstone, the commander-in-chief on that station, acting contrary to the orders under which he had sailed. After the capture of the Dutch ships in Saldanha Bay on 18 August 1796, he was promoted by Sir George to the command of one of them; he had previously, 22 July, been promoted by Sir John Jervis, the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, under whose orders he had sailed, and he also received the thanks of the admiralty.
He continued on the Cape station in command of the frigate HMS Oiseau, and was in her at Saint Helena when a mutiny broke out on board. This he quelled decisively, and he was shortly afterwards recalled to the Cape to take command of HMS Tremendous, Rear-Admiral Thomas Pringle's flagship, on board which also there had been mutineers. In the course of 1798 he returned to England with Pringle in command of the frigate HMS Crescent, and in 1801 was appointed to the frigate HMS Doris, one of the squadron off Brest, under Admiral William Cornwallis.
Read more about this topic: Charles Brisbane
Famous quotes containing the word command:
“Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.
No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman pass by!”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“For experience showed her that she had not, by marrying a man of a large fortune, obtained any great proportion of property which she could call her own or command at her pleasure.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“How did you get in the Navy? How did you get on our side? Ah, you ignorant, arrogant, ambitious—keeping sixty two men in prison cause you got a palm tree for the work they did. I don’t know which I hate worse, you or that malignant growth that stands outside your door. How did you ever get command of a ship? I realize in wartime they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. But where’d they ever scrape you up?”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)