Page:Memorandum (Rear-Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple Hay, 1912).djvu/8

( 4 ) 1842—in the Mediterranean, at Beyrout, and Tortosa, St. Jean d'Acre; 1842 to 1850—on the East Indies and China Station, and especially in command of a squadron for the suppression of piracy; and then in the operations in the Black Sea at Sebastopol, Kertch, and Kinburn.

He had in 1859 fulfilled the time which the Queen's Regulations specified as necessary to qualify him for his flag on the active list. He therefore had a positive certainty of rising, if he lived, to the highest ranks of his profession. On his return to England in 1859 he offered himself for employment. The Duke of Somerset, then First Lord of the Admiralty, requested him to serve as one of a Royal Commission to inquire into Greenwich Hospital—a duty which he concluded with Sir W. Hutt and Mr. Ingham in 1860.

In January, 1861, the Duke of Somerset, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, requested him to be Chairman of a Committee to inquire into the use of iron for defensive purposes. This duty continued until October, 1864, involving labour of an unusual character and constant