Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p1.djvu/262

232  and his family to Quebec, where he arrived on the 23d October, and after a stay of two days proceeded to Halifax to winter. In the ensuing spring he returned to Canada, and remained there about a twelve-month. In the course of the year 1788, Captain Coffin, being irritated at some unmerited treatment by the Admiralty, went over to Flanders, and entered into the service of the Brabant patriots. The conduct, however, of Lord Howe, who then presided at the Board, and his colleagues, having been declared illegal by the twelve judges, decided Captain Coffin’s return into the service of his King and Country; and at the Spanish armament in 1790, he was appointed to the Alligator, of 28 guns.

At this latter period, while lying at the Nore, the wind blowing strong, a man fell overboard; Captain Coffin, impelled by a generous and disinterested spirit of humanity, leaped in after him, and was so fortunate as to rescue a fellow being from the merciless deep. His exertions on this occasion, unfortunately produced a severe rupture; the effects of which frequently recall to his recollection the noble act by which they were occasioned.

In the spring of 1791, our officer, having previously been to Cork, where he received the flag of Admiral Cosby, was once more ordered to America, from whence he returned with Lord Dorchester and his family, in the ensuing autumn. The Alligator was soon after paid off at Deptford.

At the commencement of the war with the French republic, Captain Coffin, who had in the interim visited Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, obtained the command of the Melampus frigate, in which he was employed on Channel service until the close of 1794; when one night, by exerting himself too violently, he became ruptured on both sides, which obliged him to quit his ship, and for four months he remained literally a cripple, being at the same time afflicted with a fistula.

On his recovery he went to Leith, being appointed to the regulating service at that port; and in October 1795, we find him proceeding to Corsica, where he served as Resident Commissioner until the evacuation of that island, Oct. 15, 1796. From thence he removed to Lisbon, where he continued