On the 4th of June, in the absence of Captain Macbride, of the forty-gun frigate _Artois_, Captain Pellew assumed the temporary command of that ship, and sailed two days after to cruize on the coast of Ireland. Her master was Mr. James Bowen, so highly distinguished in the battle of the 1st of June, when he was master of the fleet, and who afterwards became a retired commissioner, and rear admiral. On the 1st of July, the _Artois_ fell in with a French frigate-built ship, the _Prince of Robego_, of twenty-two guns, and 180 men; and after a four hours' pursuit, and a running fight of half an hour with the chase guns, ran alongside, and took her. Captain Pellew gladly availed himself of this opportunity to show his grateful respect to the memory of his benefactor, Captain Pownoll, by giving the agency to his brother-in-law, Mr. Justice, one of the officers of Plymouth-yard: and the plea of gratitude which he offered to his own brother, was felt to be quite conclusive. Captain Macbride wished to appoint an agent of his own; but Captain Pellew asserted his right, as the actual captor, with so much temper and firmness, that the other at length gave way. He had known Captain Pellew from early childhood, having been his father's intimate friend, and quite understood his character, of which he now expressed an opinion in language less refined than emphatic. "Confound the fellow," said he, "if he had been bred a cobbler, he would have been first in the village." Peace left him without employment for the next four years. In 1783, he married Susan, daughter of J. Frowd, Esq., of Wiltshire; who survived him nearly four years. For a short time after his marriage, he lived at Truro; but when his elder brother became collector of the customs at Falmouth, he removed to the village of Flushing, which is separated from Falmouth only by a narrow creek, and which had peculiar attractions for him from family associations. During this period he went out in command of his brother's armed lugger, the _Hawk_, in search of a notorious outlaw, Wellard, who commanded an armed smuggler in the Channel, and who was at length killed in action with the _Hawk_, and her consort, which captured his vessel. Active occupation, indeed, was essential to his comfort, and he found a life on shore most irksome. At length, in 1786, he commissioned the _Winchelsea_, for the Newfoundland station. Among her midshipmen was the late gallant Sir Christopher Cole,[2] to whose pen the reader is indebted for the following animated sketch of his service in that frigate:--