It is not the character of the British nation to withhold from its brave defenders the fair fame to which their heroic deeds have led: and if it has been left until now to enrol among our naval worthies the noble Admiral who is the subject of the present memoir, it is to be placed to an account highly honourable to our country, and to the service in which his talents have been employed. “His life,” to use his own modest language, so like to all his other sentiments, “had been a continual service at sea, but unmarked by any of those extraordinary events or brilliant scenes which hold men up to particular attention, and distinguish them from those officers who are zealous and anxious for the public service:”–one among the number of those meritorious officers who are both able and zealous for the public service, but whose good fortune it had not yet been to be brought forward into the more conspicuous sphere of public notice, or to have had the opportunity for which they pant to display their talents in their country's service, and swell the pages of our naval annals with triumphs and achievements of their own.