Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/92

 

a son of the late Rev. Patrick Morgan, rector of Killybegs, co. Donegal, Ireland. On the 30th Jan. 1806, in consequence of Admiral Lord Keith having recommended him for meritorious conduct, a commission was signed appointing him to the Lynx sloop. Commander John Willoughby Marshall, in which vessel we find him very actively employed on the North Sea station. He subsequently served in the Agincourt 64, Resolution 74, Nymphe 38, Neptune 98, Elk sloop, and Hyperion 32, of which latter ship he appears to have been senior lieutenant.

In 1811, the Hyperion touched at Gonaives, St. Domingo, to complete wood and water, when an English merchant, named Simpson, who was detained there as a prisoner, for an alleged breach of blockade, immediately claimed the protection of the British flag. This was readily granted, but he had not been many hours on board the frigate when the batteries, without any previous notice, fired simultaneously on her boats, killed three men, and compelled her captain (____ Brodie), marine officer (George Pattoun), and a master’s-mate (____ Dillon), to surrender. It being then nearly dark, nothing could be done till next morning, but at the first dawn of day, the ship was under a press of sail, beating up against the land wind, through an intricate channel; after anchoring her with a spring on the cable, in four fathoms water, not more than musket shot from the shore, with one broadside presented to the batteries, and the other to a Haytian frigate. Lieutenant Morgan sent an officer (Lieutenant George Bissett) to acquaint the black commandant, that if, in fifteen minutes from the time of the boat landing, the captain and his companions were not set at liberty, the town would be destroyed, and the man-of-war taken to Jamaica; this threat had the desired effect, and the three officers were restored to their ship without further bloodshed.

In Mar. 1812, Lieutenant Morgan, who had been obliged to return home for the recovery of his health, was appointed to the command of the Barbara schooner, of 111 tons, 