The Ships Canton, Cirencester, Earl Talbot, and Ganges, are to be afloat the 28th of October; sail to Gravesend the 12th of November; stay there thirty days; and to be in the Downs the 18th of December.

PROMOTIONS AND APPOINTMENTS.

(AUGUST TO SEPTEMBER.)

J. L. LEWIS, Esq. and P. Birdwood, Esq. are appointed commissioners for prizes at the port of Plymouth, by the Lords Commissioners for executing the ffice of Lord High Admiral of Great Britain.

Lieutenant Ross, late First of the impetueux, is advanced to the rank of Commander, and appointed to a fireship. We have given some account of this deserving Officer in our Memoir of Lord Hood, vol. ii page 38.

Mr. Francis Mason, of the Phaeton, is advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, and appointed to the Alert fireship, 14 guns, Captain Lenox Thompsən.

Mr. Oswald, who brought the news from Naples, is advanced to the rank of Post Captain in the Navy.

Lieutenants Clay and Collier, of Lord Duncan and Admiral Mitchell's Fleet, are appointed to the rank of Master and Commander.

Lieutenant Slade, late First of the Latona, is appointed Master and Commander of his Majesty's ship L'Espiegle.

Captain Halkett is appointed to the command of a new frigate which has just been launched in the River. She is named the Apollo, after the ship which this Officer before commanded, and which was lost on the coast of Holland in a thick fog.

The numerous situations in which a considerable army require the assistance of an ahle and scientific seaman, and particularly in a country like Holland, intersected by immense rivers and several parallel canals, has induced the Duke of York to make Sir Home Popham his Naval Aid du Camp.

John Wright, Esq. First Lieutenant of the late Proserpine, is appointed to command his Majesty's lugger the Lady Ann, of 16 guns.

Captain Winckworth, of the Royal Navy, is appointed Commissioner at the Helder, for his services as a Volunteer, in the expedition to Holland.

(Marriages and Obituary in our next.}

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF

THE RICHT HONOURABLE

LORD HUGH SEYMOUR..

Thro' the wild waves, as they roar,
With watchful eye, and dauntless mien,
Thy steady course of Honour keep,
Nor fear the rock, nor seek the shore:

The Star of BRUNSWICK smiles serene,

And gilds the horrors of the Deep. GRAY.

THE Biography of living Officers, though a task of considerable difficulty, forms an essential part in a Work, established to assist the Naval Character; by making known what either its unassuming nature would conceal, or its injured delicacy had scorned to advance :-to wait until death closes its career, increases the difficulty of obtaining truth, without deriving any advantage that can weigh against it. Posthumous biography too generally resembles the portrait that is taken after death; all animation, and exact discrimination of character are lost: the source whence alone they could be derived, is no longer to be found.

The character of every one, who has moved in the higher stations of Naval Rank, may experience an undue elevation from the partiality of friends, and some unjust depression through the envy of those, who once were equals. The shades which too much prevail in the character of all men, are eagerly sought after, and sometimes cruelly exhibited: we wish rather to imitate the Bee, who often culls Honey from the plant that has been esteemed loathsome and forbidding. If we should be thought to lean towards the favourable side, and to incline rather towards the commendation of a seaman's character, than its censure; we request our readers to remember the principles, which in the preface to our first volume we declared should always influence our opinionsto do good, and to give pain to no one.

* Vice Admiral of the Blue, Master of the Robes, and Privy Purse to the Prince. Member for Portsmouth.

The Family of Seymour appeared in the Navy so early as the reign of Edward the Sixth *. When Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, uncle to the young king, was declared Protector, and created Duke of Somerset, his brother Sir Thomas Seymour, was made Baron of Sudley, and raised to the station of Lord High Admiral, on the resignation of Viscount Lisle, Earl of Warwick. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was descended from the St. Maurs, who came to England with William the Conqueror: by corruption of speech they were first called Seymour about the time of Edward the Third. Both the Protector, and his brother †, fell, owing to the envy and machinations of the Earl of Warwick. The ducal dignity was restored to the Family by Charles the Second, in the person of the Marquis of Hertford, great grandson to his predecessor, for eminent services to that Prince during exile.

The Honourable Mr. Hugh Seymour Conway, son to the late Marquis of Hertford ‡, and nephew to the late

* 1547.

+ Lord Seymour, of Sudley, in 1548 cruised on the coasts of Scotland, with a stout fleet, to prevent the refitting of their harbours. He was a man of boundless ambition, yet possessed greater talents for government than his brother the Protector. His Lordship married the Queen Dowager (Catharine Par) immediately on the demise of Henry the Eighth. This match greatly offended the Duchess of Somerset, who could not bear that the wife of her husband's younger brother, should have the precedency of her. The admiral, on his wife's death, which happened in child-bed, paid his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth, then in her 16th year: his suit was not rejected, but the will of the late King excluded both his daughters from the succession, if they married without the consent of the Regency." If we carefully examine the charge against the admiral," says Hume, “ many of the articles were general, and scarcely capable of any proof; many of them, if true, susceptible of a more favourable interpretation: his attempts seem chiefly to have been levelled against his brother's usurped authority."

Lord Conway, Baron of Ragley in the county of Warwick, and Baron of Killultagh in Ireland; created March 17, 1702-3, 2d Anne; died on the 3d of February 1731-2, and was succeeded by Francis Seymour Conway, who was created Viscount Beauchamp, and Earl of Hertford, August 3d, 1750, 24th Geo. II. His Lordship married, on May 29th, 1741, Lady Isabella Fitz-Roy, second daughter of the late Duke of Grafton. His only brother, the Right Hon Henry Seymour Conway, Lieutenant General of his Majesty's Forces, married the Countess Dowager of Ailesbury. Francis, Earl of Hertford, Chamberlain to the King from 1766 to 1782, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

Right Honourable General Conway, was born in the year 1759; and entered into the Navy, from his own choice, when only eleven years of age. He received his education. at Greenwich School, under the learned Dr. Brackyn, when that seminary was in great repute: it was at one time the intention of the late Earl of Chatham to place both his sons under the same master. The friendship which has so long subsisted between his Lordship and Rear Admiral Payne, commenced at this school. They have since followed the same profession*, combated for glory in the same action; and having thus fought together under their lamented veteran Earl Howe, equally received the grateful testimony of his Public Thanks.

Lord Hugh went first to sea under the Honourable Levison Gower in the Pallas, then destined for the Newfoundland station. He afterwards went out to the West Indies in the ship that was sent to relieve the Princess Amelia, Sir George Rodney, at Jamaica, and returned with the latter to England. His Lordship, we believe, next served, as lieutenant, on the Mediterranean station, before the American war, in the Alarm frigate, Captain Stott. Sir Edward Pellew, and the late Captain F. Cole of the

was raised to the dignity of a marquis in 1793, and died in 1795. His son the present marquis, brother to Vice Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour, was in 1774 made one of the Lords of the Treasury, and in 1780 was appointed Cofferer of his Majesty's Houshold: his titles are Francis Conway Seymour, Marquis of Hertford, Earl of Yarmouth, Colonel of the Warwickshire Militia, a Vice President of the Middlesex Hospital, and a Privy Counsellor in Ireland (Lord Conway in Ireland). His Lordship's brother, who is in the army, married June 15, 1773, Miss Delme, niece to Lord Ravensworth. Lady Isabella Seymour Conway, his Lordship's youngest sister, married, October 9, 1785, George Hatton, Esq. of Wexford. The property of the Conway family in Ireland is very great. The present Marquis was born the 12th of February 1743. He married, on the 4th of February 1768, Alicia Elizabeth, youngest daughter and co-heir of Herbert Windsor, late Viscount Windsor of Ireland; who dying in 1772, his Lordship married, in the year 1776, Isabella Anne, eldest daughter and heiress of Charles Ingram, late Viscount Irwine.

The ship which Admiral Payne last commanded, as Captain, was the Impetueux, which (L'Amerique) on the first of June, struck to Lord Hugh in the Leviathan.

Revolutionnaire, were at this time midshipmen in the same frigate. Some misunderstanding having arisen between these young seamen and their captain, in which the latter appears to have been culpable, Lieutenant Conway had an opportunity of affording them considerable asssistance: a circumstance that laid the foundation of a lasting friendship and esteem. In the year 1779, Lord Hugh was advanced to the rank of Post Captain; and during the American war highly established his character, as a brave and good seaman, in the command of his Majesty's ship Latona, of 36 guns. This frigate was mostly attached to the grand fleet: when Lord Howe sailed for the relief of Gibraltar, 1782, the Latona was the first that entered Rosia Bay, and gave intelligence of the arrival of succours to the brave defender of that fortress.

On the ninth of October, abreast of Cape St. Vincent, Lord Howe sent a cutter with a lieutenant into Faro *, a Portuguese port, to gain intelligence; who returned with the news that the enemy had failed in the assault, and that the combined fleets, consisting of forty-seven sail of the line, three ships of 56 guns, frigates, &c. &c. lay at Algeziras in Gibraltar Bay, for the purpose of preventing any supplies. October the tenth, at five P. M. the British fleet, consisting of thirty-four sail of the line, five frigates, three fire ships, with a convoy of twenty-nine sail, brought to on the starboard tack; the Spanish and Barbary Capes, Trafalgar and Spartel, distance fourteen leagues. October eleventh, at eight A. M. it having blown hard the preceding evening, the signal for the fleet and convoy to close was made; wind from W. by N. to W. by S. At half past ten the signal was thrown out, to form the line of battle a-head, in close order: the Convoy sent a-head; beat to quarters. At six P. M. the Latona frigate, and convoy, were seen abreast of

Faro, near Cape St. Mary's, in the Gulph of Cadiz, off which Admiral Rodney defeated the Spanish Fleet in January 1780.-The Latona afforded such essential service, during the relief of Gibraltar, that we have thought it proper to be thus minute.