Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp2.djvu/88

 North Sea and Channel stations, until 1801. His next appointment was to be first of the Princess Charlotte frigate, Captain the Hon. Francis F. Gardner, with whom he continued during the remainder of the war.

Lieutenant Swaine was advanced to the rank of Commander, April 29, 1802; and appointed to the Raven sloop, about July following. In her he carried despatches to Tangiers, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Valette; at which latter place he was taken under the orders of Sir Richard Bickerton, who then commanded on the Mediterranean station. In Oct. 1803, he led Lord Nelson’s fleet through the Straits of Bonifaccio to Agincourt Sound, an anchorage amongst the Madelena islands, north of Sardinia, which was the first time that a three-decker ever attempted that intricate navigation. For this service, Captain Swaine had the honor of being highly complimented by our immortal hero.

In the night of Jan. 6, 1804, the Raven was set on shore near Mazara, in Sicily, by an unusual current, and totally wrecked, notwithstanding every exertion to save her. The whole of the officers and crew, however, were happily preserved by a merchant vessel then in company. Captain Swaine was not only acquitted of all blame on account of this disaster, but commended by the court-martial for his conduct on the unfortunate occasion.

We subsequently find Captain Swaine commanding the Helicon and Philomel, sloops; the former employed on the Downs station, the latter conveying some military officers to Oporto, a Spanish grandee to Cadiz, and despatches to the Mediterranean. His post commission, appointing him to the Hind of 28 guns, bears date May 17, 1810.

In Aug. 1811, the subject of this memoir received an appointment to the Talbot 20, on the Irish station, where he narrowly escaped sharing the fate of the Saldanha frigate, having parted company with her but a short time before she was driven on a sunken rock at the entrance of Lough Swilly, by which melancholy accident, the Hon. Captain Pakenham