Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v2p2.djvu/215

  Mr. Browne joined the Carysfort of 28 guns, in which ship he completed his time as a petty officer on the Mediterranean station. We subsequently find him on board the Barfleur and Royal George, three-deckers, bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Barrington; with whom he continued till his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant about the close of 1790.

Early in 1793, Lieutenant Browne received an appointment to the Intrepid 64; and during the ensuing four years he appears to have been engaged in a great variety of services on the West India station, particularly at St. Domingo, where he was frequently landed with a division of seamen, to assist the British troops in their contest with Toussaint de l’Ouverture, and other native chiefs in the French interest; a contest attended with an alternate series of good and bad fortune, but from which our brave countrymen were at length obliged to retire, in consequence of the sad reduction of their force by that dreadful scourge the yellow fever, which is said to have carried off no less than 12,000 soldiers and 500 sailors, previous to the evacuation of the island.

In Feb. 1796, the Intrepid chased a French ship of war into a small cove near Porto Plata, on the north side of St. Domingo, where she was boarded and taken possession of by Lieutenant Browne, whose conduct on this occasion is deserving of great praise, he having volunteered to attack her