it's pernicious tendency. He had now, happily, no difficulty in
obtaining a ship; but, at the very commencement of the war, having made
the usual application, he immediately received a positive promise from
Lord Howe, which was handsomely performed still sooner than he had the
smallest reason to expect.
On the 26th of January 1793, he says, in a letter to his friend Captain
Locker, "Lord Hood tells me, that I am now fixed for the Agamemnon, at
Chatham; and, that whatever men are raised for her will be taken care of
on board the Sandwich."
The name of the ship having been thus fixed for the purpose of his
immediately raising men for sea, he had already sent out a lieutenant
and four midshipmen to get men at every sea-port in Norfolk. He
applied, also, to his friends in Yorkshire, and the north, who promised
to obtain him what hands they could, and deliver them over to the
regulating captains at Whitby and Newcastle. To Captain Locker, he
says--"I hope, if any men in London are inclined to enter for the
Agamemnon, you will not turn your back on them; as, though my bills are
dispersed over this country, &c. I have desired that no bills may be
stuck up in London till my commission is signed."
This was one of his delicate punctilios; for he did not expect that,
from what Lord Howe had written him on the occasion, the ship would have
been actually commissioned till about a fortnight longer.
On the 30th of January, however, being only four days, instead of
fourteen, after the date of the above letter, his commission was
actually signed; and, on the 7th of February, he joined his ship, the
Agamemnon of sixty-four guns, which was then under orders of equipment
for the Mediterranean.
His ship's company was soon raised; chiefly from Norfolk and Suffolk,
and not a few from his own immediate neighbourhood. So universally was
he esteemed, and such was even then the general opinion of his conduct
and abilities, that many gentlemen in the vicinity were desirous of
placing their sons under his command; some of whom, persons of
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