Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p1.djvu/43

 Nov. 1811; and in the following year, a committee of merchants voted him a handsome present of plate, to bear the following inscription:– “Presented to John George Boss, Esq. commander of his Britannic Majesty’s sloop Rhodian, for his zeal and valor in the destruction of two French privateers, and in defending a convoy from St. Jago de Cuba to Heneaga. “.”

“June 28th, 1812.”

About the same period, Commmander Boss entered Port Escondido, in the island of Cuba, and, with a trifling loss, captured and brought out a large piratical vessel, pierced for fourteen guns, together with three of her prizes. He subsequently captured upwards of twenty American merchantmen.

In 1813, the Rhodian, with 500,000 dollars on board, was totally wrecked near Port Royal, Jamaica; but, although the sea was so violent that the rafts were frequently torn away from her sides, every officer, man, and boy, the whole of her rigging and stores, and all the specie, except about forty dollars, were saved. For his extraordinary exertions on this occasion, the merchants presented Commander Boss (independent of the usual freight) with two pieces of plate, weighing 400 ounces.

The subject of this sketch married Charlotte, third daughter of the late Sir James Pennyman, Bart., of Ormesby, and niece to the first Earl Grey: their daughter, an only child, died at the age of five years. 



made a lieutenant in Nov. 1802; and promoted to the command of the Onyx sloop, Dec. 4th, 1811. 



made a lieutenant in Dec. 1793; promoted to his present rank on the 1st Feb. 1812; appointed to the Leveret sloop, Dec. 6th, 1813; re-appointed to the same vessel