After two years more passed in retirement, the French revolutionary war having extended it’s baneful influence to this country, there became an instant necessity for preparing all the strength of our navy to oppose 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 considerable respectability, solicited and obtained this distinguished favour:  particularly, the Reverend Mr. Bolton, his relation, brother of Thomas Bolton, Esq. his eldest sister’s husband; with the Reverend Mr. Hoste, and the Reverend Mr. Wetherhead, his intimate friends.

Nor must it be forgotten that, on the very first appearance of actual service, he had taken his son-in-law, young Josiah Nesbit, from school, equipped him as a midshipman, and carried him on board the Agamemnon.