leaped into the boat, and by his great expertness in the management of her, got on board, and took possession of the vessel. From this moment he had the entire confidence of his superior officer. Captain Locker was born in 1731, and entered the naval service with Captain Wyndham, a distant relative, in the Kent of 70 guns. Desirous of perfecting himself, he made two or three voyages to the East Indies, and upon the recommencement of the war in 1756, he served as mate, and acting Lieutenant under the celebrated Sir Edward Hawke, by whom he was much noticed. He afterwards served as Lieutenant on board the Experiment, which fought and took the Télémaque, June 10th, 1757, under circumstances most honourable to Lieutenant Locker. With Sir Edward Hawke he again served in the Royal George, and remained with him until 1762, when being raised to the rank of a Commander, he was appointed to the Roman Emperor fire-ship. He was made Post Captain in 1768, and soon after appointed to the Queen, 90 guns. In 1770 he commanded the Thames frigate, and upon the dispute with America the Lowestoffe, in which he remained until 1779, when from ill health, he was obliged to return to England. In this vessel he first met with Nelson. Being in 1792 raised to the rank of Commodore, he hoisted his pendant on board the Sandwich, and in the following year was made Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, where he died December 26, 1800, in the 70th year of his age.

With Captain Locker Nelson went to Jamaica, but not finding the duty sufficiently active for his mind, he quitted it, and removed into the Little Lucy, a schooner attached to the Lowestoffe frigate; and he captured the Abigail schooner from François, bound to Nantucket, after a chase of eight hours. He subsequently served in the Bristol, the flag-ship of ViceAdmiral Sir Peter Parker,1 to whom he was recommended by

'Sir Peter Parker was the son of Rear-Admiral Christopher Parker. He was a Lieutenant on board the Russell in 1743, promoted to be Captain of the Margate, and in 1749 commanded the Lancaster, a third rate. After the commencement of the war with France in 1756, he served in the West Indies, and on his return in 1758, cruized in the Channel, where he took many prizes. He served under Commodore Keppel in covering the siege of Belleisle, and blocking up the French ports in 1761. He was knighted in 1772, and in 1774 appointed to the Barfleur

Captain Locker, and rose from Third Lieutenant to be the First. Promoted to the rank of Commander, he was appointed to the Badger brig, December 8, 1778. The service on which this vessel was ordered, was to protect the Mosquito shore, and the Bay of Honduras, against the depredations of the American privateers. He was equally an object of the admiration and attachment of the settlers, and upon receiving their thanks at his departure, he was solicited, in the event of a war breaking out with Spain, to describe their situation to Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Parker, and to the Governor of Jamaica, General Sir John Dalling. Whilst engaged in the command of this vessel, the Glasgow, 20 guns, Captain Thomas Lloyd, came into Montego Bay, Jamaica, where the Badger was then lying, and Nelson says, that in two hours afterwards she took fire by a cask of rum, and that by the joint exertions of Captain Lloyd and himself, the whole crew were rescued from destruction.

In a letter to Captain Locker, Nelson gives an account of this disaster in the following words: "I suppose before this you have heard of the fate of the poor Glasgow: indeed it was a most shocking sight; and had it happened half an hour later, in all probability a great many people would have been lost. She anchored at half-past three, and at six she was in flames, owing to the steward attempting to steal rum out of the after-hold. Captain Lloyd is very melancholy indeed on the occasion, and I sincerely wish I was at Port Royal for his sake, and the ship's company's, who are falling sick very

of 90 guns. Obtaining the rank of Commodore on the American station, he hoisted his pendant on board the Bristol. Failing in his attack on Charlestown, he, under the command of Lord Howe, was detached with a small squadron to Rhode Island, in which expedition he was successful, and remained at that port until he attained the rank of Rear-Admiral, when he was ordered to Jamaica, and remained there until 1782, when he returned to England; having successively rose to be Rear-Admiral of the White, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and Vice-Admiral of the White, in September, 1780. In 1787 he represented the borough of Malden in Parliament, and in this year was promoted to be Admiral of the Blue, and in 1795, Admiral of the White. He lived to be Admiral of the Fleet, and died at a very advanced age, December 21, 1811.

Sir John Dalling was the Commander-in-chief at Jamaica. He was created a Baronet in 1783, and died in 1798.

2 Dispatches and Letters of Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. i. p. 29, from an Autograph in the Locker Papers.

fast, with the constant rains we have had since we left Montego Bay, and no place on board the Badger to shelter such a number of men."

The Marquis of Lansdowne gave to Sir N. H. Nicolas the following particulars relating to this event: "Captain Lloyd, in one of the years between 1780 and 1790, commanded a frigate, which was sent with a large stock of gunpowder to Jamaica. The night after she got into the harbour of Port Royal, one end of the vessel was discovered to be on fire. On the flame bursting out, Captain Lloyd at once perceived that if she blew up with all the gunpowder on board, all the warehouses and magazines, not far from where she lay, would be destroyed. He immediately summoned all hands, and declared, that until every cask of gunpowder was thrown into the sea, not one should leave the vessel; and that he himself would be the last to leave it. The crew, who were much attached to their commander, obeyed his orders to the letter. Every cask was disposed of, and the crew carried off in boats as directed by the Captain, who, embarking in the last, just got clear in time to escape from the total destruction of the vessel. For this service he afterwards received the warmest thanks of a meeting of the merchants and inhabitants. Captain Lloyd retired from his profession to a small estate he had inherited near Carmarthen, where I remember to have visited him on a tour through Wales, whilst I was at College." Captain Lloyd died in 1801. Events like these naturally bind men together very strongly; the remembrance of the dangers they have escaped, and the good they have co-operated to effect, can scarcely be effaced from their memory; they serve to endear them to each other for their lives. Such appears to have been the case in the present instance, for although Captain Lloyd retired from the service, and removed to Wales, I find the following letter addressed to him in 1801, which will prove the warm feelings of attachment which

existed between these two brave officers.

1 Dispatches and Letters, Vol. vii. p. 423.

"My dear Lloyd,

"St. George, Keoge Bay, near Copenhagen,

66

April 24th, 1801.

"Although I scolded you for your last letter, about great Commanders, and such stuff, yet my heart is always warm to you, and your friendship will be the pleasure of my life, let the world either smile or frown upon me. I know the envy of many, both in the late and present Ministry, are upon me; but whilst my heart tells me I do my business like an honest man, I can smile at their dirty attempts to pull me down. I stand by myself a perfectly free and independent man, and have seen too much of the world to become the tool of any party.

"We are, I suppose, on the road home, for the Emperor of Russia has ORDERED, I can give no other name to his paper, Sir Hyde Parker and the Danes to be quiet, and for us not to enter the Sound, but to stay in the Cattegat. However they may settle matters, I am fixed as fate to go to England, and get, if possible, a little rest. The moment peace comes, I shall go to Bronte, and live under the shade of my great chesnut tree. Our good friend Foley is very well. I have been a sad plague to him, for he has again, in our search after the Swedes, taken me on board his ship.

66 Hoping, in fourteen days from this date, to take you by the hand, if you are in London, but ever, my dear Lloyd, believe me,

"Your most attached and affectionate friend,
"NELSON and BRONTE.

"Thomas Lloyd, Esq.

Cilywyn,

Near Carmarthen,

S. Wales."

On the 28th of April, 1779, Nelson captured La Prudente, of eighty tons and nine men.

Nelson was succeeded in the command of the Badger by Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, afterwards Admiral Lord Collingwood. They were known to each other from

1 Frequent mention of this distinguished officer will be found in the subsequent pages. He passed fifty years of his life in the Naval Service of Great Britain, forty-four of which were in active employment abroad, being from 1793 to the year of his death, 1810, only one year in England. For particulars of his life, the reader is referred to a selection of his Public and Private Correspondence

a very early period of their service, maintained great intimacy, and appeared to proceed pari passu in their progress in the Navy. "Whenever (says Lord Collingwood)1 Lord Nelson got a step in rank, I succeeded him, first in the Lowestoffe, then in the Badger, into which ship I was made a Commander in 1779, and afterwards the Hinchinbrook, a 28-gun frigate, which made us both Post Captains." It was on the 11th of June, 1779, that Nelson was made Post Captain, and appointed to the Hinchinbrook. At this time an attack, by an immense force on Jamaica, was expected to be made under the French Admiral, Count d'Estaing. This, however, did not take place. Nelson was entrusted with the command of the batteries of Fort Charles, at Port Royal, the most important post in the whole island. At twentyone years of age then he had acquired this distinguished rank, and in 1780, he was employed in the Expedition against Fort St. Juan, in the Gulf of Mexico, and had the command of the sea part of it. The plan of this Expedition was formed by General Sir John Dalling. His object was to take Fort San Juan, on the Rio San Juan, which runs from the great American lake Nicaragua into the Atlantic, and thus to obtain possession of the cities of Granada and Leon, by effecting which, the communication of the Spaniards would have been cut off between their northern and southern dominions in America. Nelson's duty was

interspersed with Memoirs by G. L. Newnham Collingwood, 2 vols. 12mo. Lond. 1837, fifth edition, and to the Naval Chronicle, Vol. xv.

1 Naval Chronicle, Vol. xxiii. p. 330.

2 He sailed in the Hinchinbrook (so named after Lord Sandwich's seat, whence the Earl takes his second title of Viscount), from Port Royal, in September 1779, to join the Major and the Penelope, and took four sail, for which he expected to share about £800. sterling.-(Letter to Captain Locker.)

3 This plan, from the Nelson Papers, is to be found in Clarke and McArthur's Life of Nelson, Vol. i. p. 32. Collingwood says that "the Expedition to the Spanish Main was formed without a sufficient knowledge of the country, and presented difficulties not to be surmounted by human skill or perseverance. It was dangerous to proceed on the river, from the rapidity of the current, and the numerous falls over rocks which intercepted the navigation: the climate too was deadly, and no constitution could resist it effects."

1 Selection from his Public and Private Correspondence, interspersed with Memoirs of his Life by G. L. N. Collingwood, Vol. i. p. 10, 5th edition. Lond.