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 period no less than forty-three officers, who would otherwise have been his juniors, took precedence of him. He however claimed and obtained the command of the Quebec, which ship he joined on her return from a cruise, Jan. 1, 1796.

After capturing a French national cutter, Captain Cooke was again ordered to the West Indies; where by his conduct in a rencontre with two frigates of far superior force, he obtained the commendations of his Commodore, the late Sir John T. Duckworth. Whilst on the Jamaica station he appears, by the following letter, to have destroyed a formidable privateer; the particulars of which transaction we have not been able to ascertain:

“Cormorant, Mole St. Nicholas, 15th Aug 1796.

“Sir, I am favored with your account of the destruction of the privateer Regulus, on which I congratulate you, as she has been of great annoyance to the trade; but I could have wished that among the 16 Sans Culottes who fell by your well-directed fire, that Pierre Olanger, her commander, who is an infamous scoundrel, had been of the party.

“Captain Cooke, H.M.S. Quebec.”

During Captain Cooke’s continuance on the Jamaica station, he captured l’Africaine, a French corvette of 18 guns; and destroyed a vast number of armed vessels and piratical boats, off the island of St. Domingo; and so highly were those services appreciated by the inhabitants of St. Marc’s, that they presented the following address to the Commander-in-Chief, interceding for his continuance there;

“The inhabitants of the town of St. Marc’s, anxious to testify to Captain Cooke, commander of his Majesty’s frigate Quebec, the great regret they feel at his quitting the station, desiring at the same time to express their gratitude to the Commodore, Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s naval forces, seize with eagerness this opportunity to assure the Commodore, the cruises which Captain Cooke has made since he has been in our vicinity, have always been attended with the most happy success. The number of row-boats and other vessels which he has destroyed, witness his great activity in cruising, and evince the services which he has rendered our town. Anxious in the very fullest manner to express their just sentiments to Captain Cooke, the inhabitants of this town supplicate the 