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  subsequently served under Rear-Admiral Linzee, in the Windsor Castle, Victory, and Princess Royal, three-deckers, and was paid off from the latter in the autumn of 1796.

Lieutenant Katon’s next appointment was to the Prince 98, bearing the flag of Sir Roger Curtis, with whom he continued about two years. In 1798 he joined the Earl of St. Vincent in the Ville de Paris, a first rate, then off Cadiz; and on the 6th Jan. 1801 was appointed by that officer to act as Captain of the Princess Royal, whose late commander had recently been promoted to a flag. In the course of the same month he assumed the command of the Cumberland 74, (pro tempore,) and accompanied Sir Robert Calder to the West Indies, in search of a French squadron that had escaped from Brest under Rear-Admiral Gantheaume. On his arrival at Jamaica in April he was appointed by Lord Hugh Seymour to the Lark sloop of war, then off the Havannah; and on the 24th July, removed by the same nobleman to the Carnatic of 74 guns, in which ship Rear-Admiral Robert Montagu soon after hoisted his flag, and proceeded on a cruise off Cuba.

Captain Katon’s post commission was confirmed by the Admiralty Oct. 23, 1801; and on the 26th of the following month, Rear-Admiral Montagu, who had succeeded to the chief command on the Jamaica station, appointed him to the command of his flag-ship, the Sans Pareil of 84 guns. Previous to that officer’s departure for England in the Melampus frigate, he presented Captain Katon with a sword, as a token of his regard, and approbation of the manner in which he had conducted himself during the period of their serving together.

