Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Exmouth, Edward Pellew, Viscount, 1757-1833
Israel, the third brother, born August 25th, 1758, was sent to sea at an
early age. He served with distinction in the American war, and was one
of the officers entrusted with the defence of posts, when the Comte
d'Estaign appeared off New York. Promoted to be a lieutenant, he cut out
a vessel so well protected by batteries, that his brother officers
thought it a service too desperate to be attempted. In command of the
armed cutter _Resolution_, he engaged and captured in the North Sea, the
Dutch privateer _Flushinger_, of fourteen guns, which had proved so
destructive a cruizer, that the merchants of Hull memorialized the
Admiralty in his favour; and Keppell, the First Lord, continued him for
three years in command of the cutter, notwithstanding the signature of
peace the day before the action, expressly to reward his gallantry and
success. He was made a commander in 1790. He was passenger in his
brother's frigate the _Nymphe_, when she gave the first earnest of the
naval successes of the war, by the capture of the _Cleopatra_; and he
contributed much to the brilliant result of the action, by taking
charge of the after quarter-deck gun, with which he disabled the enemy's
wheel. For this service he was at once promoted and appointed to a ship,
and he continued to be so actively employed, that he never once saw his
family, till after the peace. In September, 1796, his ship, the
_Amphion_, 32-gun frigate, blew up while alongside the hulk in Hamoaze,
and nearly all on board, about 300, perished. Captain Pellew was at the
moment at dinner in his cabin, with Captain Swafneld, of the
_Overyssel_, 64, and the first lieutenant. At the shock of the
explosion, which took place in the fore magazine, Captain Pellew, and
the lieutenant sprang into the quarter gallery, and were thrown into the
water and saved; Captain Swaffield perished.
Soon after the renewal of hostilities, he was appointed by Earl St.
Vincent to the _Conqueror_, one of the largest and most powerful
seventy-four's in the Navy. She carried twenty-four pounders on her
upper deck, there being only fourteen ships, out of 100 of the same
nominal force, which were so heavily armed. In her he shared with Nelson
the chase of the combined fleet to the West Indies and back, and took a
very distinguished part in the battle of Trafalgar. Following, abreast
of the _Leviathan_, the three leading ships of Nelson's column, she
engaged, captured, and took possession of the _Bucentaure_, flagship of
the commander-in-chief of the enemy, Villeneuve; and she afterwards
assisted in the capture of the _Santissima Trinidada_, and _Intrepide_.
In 1807, still in command of the _Conqueror_, Captain Pellew joined in
saving the fleet and royal family of Portugal, when the French, under
Junot, entered Lisbon; and afterwards in blockading a Russian squadron
of nine sail of the line in the Tagus, till the victory of Vimiera
placed them in the hands of the British.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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