Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/377

 services, Lieutenant Powney suffered so much from fatigue and privations that he was unfortunately obliged to invalid, a short time previous to the capture of the United States’ ship President, Jan. 15th, 1815. He returned home first of the Martin sloop, Captain (now Sir Humphrey F.) Senhouse. On the escape of Napoleon Buonaparte from Elba to France, in the spring of 1815, Lieutenant Powney was appointed to the Caledonia 120, destined to hoist the flag of Sir John Gore; but which ship was paid off immediately after the battle of Waterloo. In September following, he received an appointment to the Vengeur 74, Captain Thomas Alexander, stationed at Portsmouth; the tender of which ship, employed in the suppression of smuggling, he commanded for two years. In 1818, he was appointed to the command of the Camelion revenue cutter, in which vessel he cruised, with considerable success, against illicit traders, in the British Channel, for a period of three years, occasionally attending upon our late monarch in his aquatic excursions.

In 1822, at the particular request of that admirable seaman, Captain John Hayes, C.B., Lieutenant Powney was appointed to command the Arrow, a cutter of his construction, of about 160 tons, mounting ten guns, embracing stability under canvas with little ballast, great buoyancy, better stowage, and swifter sailing qualities, than any model ever before designed by known schools of naval architecture. In this vessel, the construction and management of which reflected equal credit on Captain Hayes and Lieutenant Powney, when competing with many other cutters of greater tonnage, the latter officer was employed, for nearly three years, in protecting the oyster fisheries about Jersey, during which period he succeeded in capturing many smugglers.

In 1825, Lieutenant Powney was appointed to the Royal George yacht, and he subsequently, while commanding her tender, the Calliope, conveyed the Mexican chargé d’affaires, Senor Rocafuerte, with a treaty of commerce, from England to New Spain, where he was presented by the government of