Page:A Naval Biographical Dictionary.djvu/839

Rh gun-boats Nos. 1 and 12, he remained until Nov. 1812. He then (he had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 21 of the preceding March) took a passage in the 50, armée en flûte, Capt. John Thompson, for the purpose of joining the  98, Capt. Sir Edw. Berry, off Toulon. During a subsequent cruize off the coast of Catalonia aa Supernumerary-Lieutenant of the 74, Capt. Sir Jas. Athol Wood, we find him detached in command of a tender. On 13 March, 1813, having removed to the 74, Capt. Henry Heathcote, he took command of the launch belonging to that ship, and had the good fortune to rescue H.M. gun-brig  from what had appeared inevitable destruction. Before, however, he had had time to regain his own vessel he was driven in a squall to sea, where he remained four days and three nights without either provisions or water. In the end he was picked up by a merchantman, and carried into Port Mahon, but so great had been the sufferings undergone, that 8 of his crew died from the effects. As to himself, he ultimately lost the sight of the right eye, and was injured in the other to an extent that he has ever since continued to feel. He was afterwards present in the in the partial action fought with the French fleet off Toulon, and in Nov. 1814 was paid off. His last appointments were, in 1823-4, to the 80, Capt. Lucius Ferdinand Hardyman,  120, flag-ship of Sir Jas. Saumarez, and 74, Capts. Hugh Downman and Edw. Durnford King, all stationed at Plymouth, where, in July, 1825, he was superseded at his own request.

Lieut. Nowell married, 27 June, 1816, Mary Ann Sutherland, eldest daughter of the late Mr. A. Vine, of Stonehouse, Devon, and sister of the late Lieut. Wm. Vine, R.N. (1812), of Darland, near Chatham, co. Kent. By that lady he has issue nine children.

 NOWELL. 

entered the Navy 5 Feb. 1813; passed his examination in 1820; and obtained his commission 8 Aug. 1828. His appointments have since been – 15 March, 1831, to the 42, Capts. Manley Hall Dixon and Wm. Walpole, fitting for the West Indies, whence he returned to England and was paid off in 1834 – 13 Oct. 1836, to the 80, Capts. Hon. Duncombe Pleydell Bouverie and Sir Thos. Fellowes, under whom he was for upwards of three years and a half employed in the Mediterranean – 14 Jan. 1841, to the 84, Capts. Geo. Mansel and Michael Seymour, on the same station – and, 16 March, 1842, and 15 April, 1844, as Senior-Lieutenant, to the 84 and  110, commanded, also in the Mediterranean, by Capt. Sir Chas. Sullivan. He was paid off from the in the summer of the latter year; and he has been in command, since 9 Oct. 1847, of the  steam-sloop of 200 horsepower, again on the station last named.

He married, 9 April, 1839, at Malta, Catanna, daughter of the Marquis of Testaferrata.

 NUGENT. 

, born in March, 1782, is second son of the late Jas. Nugent, of Ballynacorr, co. Westmeath, a Count of the Germanic or Holy Roman Empire, by his second wife, Matilda, daughter of Con O’Donel, Esq., of Larkfield, co. Leitrim, and neice, maternally, of Sir Neale O’Donnel, Bart. One of his brothers, Constantine, a Lieutenant in the 64th Regt. of Foot, was wounded at the capture of the Virgin Islands in 1801, and died soon afterwards at St. Christopher’s; and another, Thos. D’Alton, entering the Austrian service in 1819, under the auspices of his kinsman, Field-Marshal Prince Nugent, as Lieutenant in the 4th Imperial Guards, became a Captain in Prince Nugent’s own Regiment of Foot. The eminent family to which Commander Nugent belongs is closely connected with most of the chief houses in Ireland, and in its history is identified with the principal events in tlio annals of that country. His father’s first wife was a niece of the Marchioness of Buckingham and of Robt. Nugent Lord Clare; and he had inherited his title in right of his mother, a sister of Christopher, Count D’Alton, Field-Marshal in the service of Austria. Commander Nugent is uncle of the present Count Nugent.

This officer entered the Navy, 25 April, 1793, as Captain’s Servant, on board the 64, Capt. Lord Cranstoun; and in the following month joined the  74, commanded at first by his patron, Capt. Hon. Thos. Pakenham, and next by Capt. Lawrence Wm. Halsted. In the course of the same year he assisted at the destruction of a convoy under the batteries at Barfleur; he was present, in 1794, in Lord Howe’s actions of 28 and 29 May and 1 June; and, in 1795, after participating in Lord Bridport’s action, he accompanied an expedition sent to co-operate with the Royalists in Quiberon Bay. Between Oct. in the latter year and Oct. 1799 he became in succession attached, chiefly in the capacity of Midshipman, to the 80, Capts. Hon. T. Pakenham, John Lawford, and Wm. Hancock Kelly, 38, Capt. Hon. Arthur Kaye Legge,  98, flag-ship of Rear-Admirals Sir John Orde and Thos. Lennox Frederick, and 110 and  100, bearing the flags of Earl St. Vincent and Lord Keith. In the boats of the we find him frequently engaged with the enemy’s gun-boats off Cadiz; and in the  present as Signal-Midshipman at the capture, 19 June, 1799, of Rear-Admiral Perrée’s squadron of three frigates and two brigs. We may here observe that he had been appointed Signal-Midshipman of the latter ship on promotion by Lord St. Vincent as a reward for the promptitude with which on a certain occasion he had repeated that nobleman’s signals in the. During the term of his servitude in the Queen Charlotte Mr. Nugent was often employed in the boats under Lord Cochrane in action with Spanish gun-vessels; and he was in her when the combined fleets of France and Spain were pursued into Brest. Towards the close of 1799 he was invested with the rank of Acting-Lieutenant and the command of the gun-boat. In that vessel he succeeded soon afterwards in recapturing a Danish brig from two French privateers, under the batteries of Ceuta, and behaved in a manner so extremely gallant that his conduct was reported to Lord Keith in the most flattering manner by Capt. Jas. Newman Newman of the frigate, an eyewitness of the exploit, in which, it must be added, Mr. Nugent was slightly wounded. Being confirmed in the rank of Lieutenant by commission dated 15 Jan. 1800, he was successively appointed in that capacity – 14 Sept. following, for two years, to the 36, Capt. Lawrence Wm. Halsted – between Aug. 1803 and March, 1805, to the command of the, , , , and cutters – on 1 of the month last mentioned, to the  64, Capt. Thos. Briggs – 13 July, 1805, to the command, which he retained for nine years, of the brig of 14 guns – and 4 Nov. 1814, as First, to the  74. In the besides commanding her boats, in conjunction with the present Admiral Christian, at the cutting out of several vessels under a battery near Piombino, he accompanied the expedition of 1801 to Egypt, and assisted at the capture, 3 Aug. and 2 Sept. in that year, of the French frigates Carrère, Succès and Bravoure. During his command of the and  he effected several recaptures, drove on shore and destroyed three lugger privateers, and was slightly wounded while cutting out a richlyladen vessel from under the batteries at Dieppe. In the Lieut. Nugent performed many dashing services. On 12 Oct. 1806 he took part in an action of an hour and a quarter, fought in the Bay of Erqui, between a British squadron, consisting, with the, of the 22,  16, and  cutter, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the Salamandre of 26 guns and 80 men, a 2-gun battery planted on a hill, and