64

LETTERS.

[1782.

TO WILLIAM LOCKER , ESQ., GRAY’S INN.

[Autograph, in the Locker Papers.]

St. John’s Harbour, Newfoundland , June 1st, 178*2.

My dear Sir,

We arrived at this disagreeable place last Monday, at day-light (the 27th) with four Sail of the Convoy; we parted fromthe Daedalus on the 7th of May, three hundred leagues to theWestward of Cape Clear, in a hard gale of wind. As the windhas blown strong from the Eastward, ever since our arrivalhere, I imagine that Captain Pringle could not fetch this Port,and is therefore gone on to the Westward ; if he is, this windwill carry him to Quebec , while I am so unfortunate as to be kepthere with a fair wind; for the entrance of this harbour is sonarrow, that you cannot sail unless the wind blows right out:as soon as the wind changes I shall sail.

Leocadia arrived here three days before us with the Salt Shipsfrom Lisbon . Captain Hope 5 desires his compliments; he tooka Ship privateer, the day he made the land, of fourteen guns.We have heard the news from the West Indies , but not par-ticulars: it is reported that the Duke blew up in the Action.I hope to God it is not true. I had rather the French were atthe devil, than have lost Captain Gardner: he is a real loss tothe Service. 6 You know the particulars long before this. Mysecond Lieutenant was appointed to the Preston, and left theShip at Cork ; the other Lieutenant not having joined the Ship ,I gave Bromwich an order to act as a Lieutenant: it will in allprobability get him some prize-money, and I hope get him con-firmed a Lieutenant; he does his duty exceedingly well as anOfficer: indeed I am very well off. They are all good.

As to myself, the voyage agrees better w'ith me than I ex-pected. I hope you are much better in your head than when

5 Captain Charles Hope, grandson of Charles, first Earl of Hopetoun, andfather of Captain Henry Hope, C. B. He was for some time Commissioner ofthe Navy at Chatham, and died in September 1808.

6 Sir George Rodney’s engagement with the French Fleet under Count deGrasse, on the 12th of April 1782. The report of the explosion of the Duke wasunfounded. Captain Alan Gardner, who greatly distinguished himself in thatbattle, and on numerous other occasions, became an Admiral, was raised to thePeerage, both in England and Ireland , and died in December 1808.