which he would rise by seniority to a flag.  Had he remained a commander through the peace, which, but for this action, in all probability he would have done, he could not have become a flag-officer till near the close of the revolutionary war.  The country would then have lost his most valuable services; and he would have been remembered only as a distinguished captain.  His promotion was announced to him by the First Lord in the following terms:—­

Admiralty Office.  May 25, 1782.

“SIR,—­I am so well pleased with the account I have received of your gallant and seaman-like conduct in the sloop you command, in your spirited attack on three privateers inside the Isle of Bass, and your success in driving them all on shore, that I am induced to bestow on you the rank of a post-captain, in the service to which your universal good character and conduct do credit:  and for this purpose, I have named you to the Suffolk, and hope soon to find a frigate for you, as she is promised to a captain of long standing.

“KEPPEL.”

Captain Pellew thus obtained every step of rank expressly as a reward of a brilliant action in which he personally commanded; and in this respect, and in the number and extent of his services while he remained in the lower grades of his profession, he was singular, not only among his contemporaries, but perhaps in the annals of the navy.

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.