Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp2.djvu/422

 employment or promotion, when an opportunity offers. I have the honor to be, &c.

(Signed)“ .”

To this application the First Lord of the Admiralty replied, that the documents of Lieutenant Campbell’s services were very satisfactory; that he was much inclined at all times to meet his Grace’s wishes, and that as the door was then shut to promotion, he would with pleasure appoint the young man senior Lieutenant of a frigate. Mr. Campbell was accordingly appointed first of the Carysfort 28, and he appears to have commanded the boats of that ship at the capture of a French letter of marque, mounting 6 guns, with a complement of 20 men, on the Norwegian coast, in 1803.

Towards the latter end of Mar. 1804, the Carysfort sailed from Cork, in company with H.M.S. Apollo and sixty-nine sail of merchantmen, bound to the West Indies. A narrative of the disasters which befel that convoy will be found in our memoir of Captain Edward Harvey.

On his arrival at Barbadoes, Lieutenant Campbell received a letter from the Admiralty, acquainting him that he was promoted, and appointed to a command in the Irish Sea Fencible service.

In consequence of this notification, he was superseded; but another letter shortly afterwards arrived from the late Viscount Melville, directing the commander-in-chief to put him into the first vacancy that should occur at the Leeward Islands.

Lieutenant Campbell was subsequently honored with the approbation of Commodore Hood, for his gallant conduct when commanding the Tobago schooner, in a successful attack made by that vessel and the Curieux sloop upon two merchantmen lying under the protection of the batteries at Barcelona, on the coast of Caraccas.

In July, 1805, this zealous officer was appointed to the command of the Lily sloop, and about the same period we find him entrusted with the charge of a small armament sent