Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v1p2.djvu/198

622  Baronet; Rear-Admiral of the Red; Knight Commander of the most honorable Military Order of the Bath; and Member of Parliament for Kinsule

officer is the second son of Clotworthy Rowley, Esq. Counsellor at Law, and some time M.P. for Downpatrick, in Ireland, by Letitia, daughter of Samuel Campbell, of Bath, Esq., and a grandson of Sir William Rowley, K.B. Vice-Admiral of England, Admiral of the Fleet, and a Lord of the Admiralty, who died on the 1st. Jan. 1768.

After having been borne for some time on the books of a stationary vessel, Mr. Rowley embarked on board a sea-going ship in the year 1779; and served during the remainder of the war in the Channel, and on the West India station. He was made a Lieutenant towards the latter end of 1783; promoted to the rank of Commander in March, 1793; and became a Post-Captain April 6, 1795. This latter promotion took place immediately on his return from escorting the Princess Caroline of Brunswick to this country, on which occasion he commanded the Lark sloop of war, attached to the squadron under the orders of Commodore Payne. In 1797, we find him in the Braave, of 40 guns, at the Cape of Good Hope, on which station he continued until the cessation of hostilities, and then sailed for England in the Imperieuse frigate, to which he had been removed in the summer of 1799.

Captain Rowley’s next appointment was to the Raisonable, of 64 guns, which ship formed part of Sir Robert Calder’s fleet in the action off Ferrol, July 22, 1805 ; and on that occasion had one man killed and several others wounded. At the latter end of the same year, our officer accompanied the expedition sent against the Cape of Good Hope, under Commodore Popham and Sir David Baird; and after the reduction of that important colony proceeded with the former commander to the Rio de la Plata, where he remained until the final evacuation of Spanish America by the British forces.

