of the Arundel during the war; but the misfortunes which his mifconduct had before brought on him were not fufficient to work a reformation in him. He was fined three months pay by the fentence of a court martial, held on him in the river Medway, on the 15th of December 1712, for using improper language, highly unbecoming a commander, to his officers, and confining fome of them to their cabins without having any just cause of complaint. There is no trace of his having been again employed; nor is any mention made of him except that he died on the 26th of June 1725.

--

ELFORD, Matthew, the brother of captain William Elford, of whom we have before given fome account, was appointed captain of the Experiment on the 5th of March 1711. His thip was employed, during the remainder of the war, as a cruifer at the entrance of the Channel; and in this fervice he had tolerable fuccefs*, We are under confiderable difficulty after this time to difcriminate between this gentleman and his brother: this originates, as we have already obferved, in the proper want of diftinction between them, in fuch documents as we have been able to procure, we shall not, therefore, take upon us to decide which of the two was, during the years 1720 and 1721, captain of the York, of fixty guns. The name of Elford does not again occur in the fervice; but we find this gentleman to have died on the 20th of September 1733

FIELD, Arthur,-was, on the 22d of October 1711, appointed captain of the Ormond. He continued in this vellel only till the month of April following, being then fucceeded by captain Mafter. No other mention is made of him till the year 1718, when he was appointed to the Rupert, of fixty guns, one of the fleet fent into the Mediterranean under fir G. Byng. He very much diftinguished himfelf in the engagement with the Spanish fleet; and had the good fortune, affifted by the Montague, captain Beverly, to capture the Volante, one of the finaller twodecked fhips belonging to the enemy. After his return from the Mediterranean he was, in 1721, removed into the Defiance, a fhip of the fame force with that he before

See Gazette, No. 5009.

com

commanded, and one of the fleet ordered for the Baltic under fir John Norris. In 1723 he was made captain of the Superbe, and continued in the command of that ship till his death. In the year 1726 he was ordered to the West Indies as one of the fquadron fent out under viceadmiral Hofier, and was one of the multitude of brave and ever-to-be lamented perfons who fell victims to that climate, fo generally injurious to European conftitutions. He died on the 26th of June 1726.

FLETCHER, John,-was, in the year 1709, commander of the Rose, a pink or floop of war, employed principally as a coafting convoy. On the 7th of March 1711, he was promoted to the rank of captain, and appointed to the Roebuck. No other mention is made of him, not even to inform us whether he ever afterwards obtained any appointment. He died, having to a certainty retired from the fervice for many years, in the month of May 1758.

GRAY, John,--is to be noticed only as having been, on the 26th of January 1711, appointed captain of the Folkftone. He is faid, in Mr. Hardy's lift, to have died in England in the year 1736; but every manufcript lift we have seen is filent concerning him.

MABBOT, Thomas, was, on the 2d of February 1711, appointed captain of the Mary galley. Towards the clofe of the year he was ordered to accompany captain Riddle, who commanded the Falmouth, to the coast of Guinea. On the 11th of March 1711-12, they fell in with two French fhips of war, of force infinitely fuperior to their own; and a very fpirited action took place in confequence. The enemy's fhips were fortunate enough to effect their escape; and captain Mabbot, after having exerted himself with the utmoft gallantry, had the miffortune to fall in the encounter.

MAYNE, Covill,-entered into the navy immediately after the revolution, under the very honourable protection and patronage of that great and gallant man fir Cloudefley Shovel; among whofe papers we find the following letter, ftrongly recommending him to the notice of Mr. Ruffel, afterwards earl of Orford, who was at that time firft commiffioner of the admiralty.

"Having

"Having had the opportunity to examine the bearer, Mr. Covill Mayne, touching his qualification to perform the duty of a lieutenant, I find him to be a very pretty feaman; and knowing him to be a very brifk forward active young man, I believe him to be a perfon very deferving of preferment, and one that will prove an extraordinary officer and a brave man : and I inuft needs fay, it would be much for the honour of the fervice, that all perfons employed therein were fo completely qualified. I know having given him this character (which he really deferves) I need ufe no other motive to recommend him to your favour, fo remain,

"To admiral Ruffell, Crutched Fryars, Feb. 22, 1695.

"Sir, &c.

"C. S."

Notwithstanding this powerful fupport, a fupport his fubfequent conduct proved him in every refpect highly deferving of, he was not advanced to the rank of captain in the navy till the 11th of May 1711, when he was appointed to the Dolphin. During the long and uninteresting period of peace, and languid hoftilities which fucceeded the peace of Utrecht, we find no other mention made of him except that, in 1717, he commanded the Strafford, of fifty guns, one of the fleet fent into the Baltic under fir George Byng, who left him to continue, for the better protection of trade, on that station, with the Severn and Lynn, as long as the weather would permit them, after the return of the main body of the fleet to England.

In 1718 he commanded the Prince Frederic, on the same station as the foregoing, under fir John Norris, as he did alfo, under the fame admiral, in the following year. We find no mention made of him after this time till the commencement of the war with Spain, in 1739: he then commanded the Lenox. of feventy guns, one of the fquadron which failed from Spithead, in the month of July, under the command of vice-admirał Vernon, who, as it is well known, commanded the memorable expedition against Porto Bello. Captain Mayne did not proceed with him to his place of ultimate deftination, but was left with the captains Durell and Falkingham, in the Kent and Elizabeth, each of equal force with his own fhip, the Lenox, to cruife, for thirty days, off Cape

3

Ortugal,

Ortugal, in hopes they would be able to intercept the Spanish Azogues fhips,

In this expectation they were, howeyer, difappointed; and after having continued on their station during the time prefcribed in their inftructions, returned to England fuccefslefs, As foon as captain Mayne had properly recruited his ftock of water and provifions, he was again ordered out on a cruise, in company with the Kent, commanded, as before, by captain Thomas Durell; and the Orford, alfo a third rate of feventy guns, by the Lord Auguftus Fitzroy. His prefent cruise was a much more fuccessful one than his preceding, for the Englifh fhips had the good fortune to fall in with the Princeffa, a Spanish fhip of war mounting feventy guns, commanded by an officer of the highest estimation in the enemy's fervice, who had under him a chofen crew of fix hundred and fifty-four men. The fhip itself was equal in fize to a British first rate, and of a ftrength more than proportionable, for her fides were of fo uncommon a thickness, that few of the balls penetrated. Even those which they received from the lower-deck guns of the British fhips, were, generally fpeaking, lodged; while those fired from the Spaniard paffed through and through. This circumftance, added to the wonderful advantage the derived from her height out of the water, which laid the upper decks of her antagonists open to her, reduced the great apparent fuperiority in numbers and force to a mere nonentity,

Captain Mayne, who being the fenior officer acted as commodore, got fight of the enemy about nine o'clock in the morning. The Spaniard confiding in the strength of his fhip, and the uncommon weight and fize of his

guns

*The following defcription of the ship and action may not prove anentertaining.

"The Princeffa was a fixty-eight gun fhip, high built, and therefore had the uncommon advantage of ufing her lower tier of guns in bad weather. There were on board her at the time of the action near feven hundred men. The fhip was larger than the British first rates; her guns were of an uncommon fize, and most of them brafs. In fhort, he was univerfally deemed one of the fineft veffels in the Spanish navy. As the British fhips approached the commander called ogether his men and addreffed them in pearly the following words; When

guns appeared neither to fhun nor to feek an action. Gallantry forbade the former, prudence the latter; for the fuperior numbers of his antagonists certainly precluded all hope of his being able to effect more than his own prefervation. Under this idea, being a man of approved courage, and a knight of Malta, he refolutely brought his fhip And the English captains, on their parts, confidering their victory as certain, crouded all the fail they could to clofe with him.

to.

The action commenced about eleven o'clock, the Lenox bringing to on the weather quarter of the enemy, while the Kent, who followed immediately, ran to leeward and engaged broadfide and broad fide. The Orford foon afterwards got into action; but fuch was the ftrong conftruction of the Princeffa that the received very little damage from the two latter fhips. The Lenox was very adroitly kept during nearly the whole of the action in a pofition where the enemy was fomewhat more vulnerable; but the contest was long and obftinate, the Spaniard not permitting his colours to be struck till a quarter past five in the afternoon. The hardly contefted-for prize was carried into Portsmouth; and the captors, as well as all those who beheld her, fcarcely knew which moft to admire, the admirable form and immenfe fize of the fhip itself, the great damage fhe had fuftained before she had furrendered, or the gallantry with which the had been fo nobly defended.

Captain Mayne afterwards accompanied fit John Norris on his fhort and unfuccefsful cruise in the year 1740; and we believe remained in the fame fhip during the enfuing fummer: but we do not find him to have been happy enough to have atchieved any exploit fufficiently prominent to be recorded in hiftory. After he quitted the

"When you received the pay of your country you engaged your felves to fland all dangers in her caufe. Now is the trial; fight like men, for you have no hope but in your courage."

The fhip was brought into Portfmouth: and when the people faw her ftrength, and the damage fhe had fuftained before her commander fubmitted, they applauded, in the highest terms, the gallantry of her captors, notwithstanding the fuperiority of their numbers might appear to have leffened the glory of the action in the eyes of those who were not thoroughly acquainted with the circumstances attending it.

VOL. IV.

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Lenox