Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/211

 rank of lieutenant on 28 May 1793, and by Lord Howe's desire appointed to the Pegasus repeating frigate, specially for signal service. He was afterwards transferred to the Queen Charlotte, Howe's flagship, on board which he acted as signal officer during the anxious days preceding 1 June 1794. In the battle of that day he had command of the foremost lower-deck quarters, and with his own hands fired each gun in succession, double-shotted, into the Montague's stern. On the arrival of the fleet and prizes off the Isle of Wight he was sent up to London with despatches, and was promoted on 7 Oct. 1794 to be commander of the Comet fireship, out of which he was posted on 6 April 1795 to the command of the Babet frigate of 22 guns. In her he was present in the action off L'Orient on 23 June 1795, and in July 1796 was moved into the Druid, on the Lisbon station, which ship early in 1797 he brought home and paid off.

In May 1805 he commissioned the Orion of 74 guns. In her, in August, he joined the fleet off Cadiz, and on 21 Oct. took part in the battle of Trafalgar, where he was selected by Nelson as leader of the squadron which he at first proposed to hold in reserve, in order the more easily to strengthen either of the columns of attack (Nelson Despatches, vii. 154). He afterwards continued in command of the Orion and attached to the fleet under Lord Collingwood [q. v.] till December 1806. In November 1808 he was appointed to the Blake of 74 guns, which was employed during the next summer in the North Sea, under Sir Richard Strachan, bore Lord Gardner's flag in the Walcheren expedition, and was hotly engaged in forcing the passage of the Scheldt on 14 Aug. In the early summer of 1810 Codrington, still in the Blake, was sent to co-operate with the Spaniards at Cadiz, and in August was charged with the difficult duty of convoying to Minorca four crazy old Spanish line-of-battle ships, only half manned, half provisioned, and crowded with refugees, a task which was safely accomplished after a distressing passage of thirty-eight days. During 1811-12 he commanded a detached squadron on the east coast of Spain, co-operating with the Spaniards wherever opportunity offered, and waging a desultory but harassing war against the French invaders. Early in 1813 he returned to England, and in the beginning of 1814 was sent out to the North American station with a broad pennant in the Forth frigate. On 4 June 1814 he was advanced to flag rank and appointed captain of the fleet to Sir Alexander Cochrane [q. v.], under whom he conducted the operations of the fleet in the Chesapeake, and afterwards at New Orleans, with his flag in the Havannah of 36 guns. On 2 Jan. 1815 he was nominated a K.C.B., and on 10 July 1821 became a vice-admiral.

In December 1826 Codrington was appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, and sailed for his station on 1 Feb. 1827, with his flag in the Asia of 84 guns. After a stay of some months at Malta he was induced by the extreme development of piracy and the urgent appeals of Stratford Canning, the ambassador at Constantinople, to go into the Levant, in the hope of mitigating the horrors of the war of Greek independence. He left Malta on 19 June and arrived on the coast of Greece in the early days of July. There the position was one of extreme difficulty, for while a large section of the British public was enthusiastic in the cause of the Greeks, the English government was suspicious of the objects of the Russians. George Canning, the then prime minister, was anxious that any interference with the war should be made in concert ; and in July succeeded in concluding a treaty between England, France, and Russia, by which it was provided that each of the three powers should instruct its admiral in the Mediterranean 'to exert all the means which circumstances might suggest to his prudence to obtain the immediate effect of the desired armistice, by preventing, as far as should be in his power, all collision between the contending parties.' Codrington was further ordered to receive instructions from Stratford Canning. It is impossible to doubt that the provisions of the treaty and such orders to the admiral contemplated the employment of force as at least probable ; and they were so interpreted by the ambassador, who wrote on 19 Aug. that 'the true meaning of the second instruction under the treaty is, that we mean to enforce, by cannon-shot if necessary, the armistice which is the object of the treaty ; the object being to interpose the allied forces and to keep the peace by the speaking-trumpet if possible, but in case of necessity by force.' This interpretation he repeated in even stronger language on 1 Sept., and it must be held as a sufficient warrant to Codrington to employ force if he should deem it necessary to do so.

On 25 Sept. Codrington and the French admiral, De Rigny, had an interview at Navarino with Ibrahim Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish sea and land forces, explained to him their instructions, and, through the interpreter, obtained from him a verbal assent to the proposed armistice. But a few days later, on receiving the

