Rosie, I should have delayed my last post. Just two small snippets I noticed during a spot of late night browsing:
22° 18' west, the British 18-pounder 32-gun frigate Cerberus, Captain John Drew, captured the French ship-privateer Epervier, of sixteen 4-pounders and 145 men; on the 13th recaptured a ship, her prize; and on the 14th captured another ship-privateer, the Renard, carrying eighteen 6-pounders and 189 men. The Cerberus also chased the ship-privateer Buonaparte, mounting, as represented, 32 guns, with a crew of 250 men, and would have captured her, had not the frigate's studding-sails and main topgallantmast been carried away. As it was, the Cerberus pressed the Buonaparte so closely, and annoyed her so much with her bow-guns, as to compel her to throw overboard the greater part of her guns and stores, and, as was understood, to return to Bordeaux.
(James, The Naval History Of Great Britain. Vol 2, Page 91.)
Patrick Marione supplies a little personal information:
Captain John Drew. • He was a younger son of M Drew of Stockaton near Saltash, Cornwall. • Younger brother of Commander James Drew, RN. Uncle of Lieutenant John (2) Drew, RN, and of James Drew, RN, drowned while Acting-Lieutenant of the Cerberus, when she foundered. • Whilst in command of the Cerberus, he was drowned on 11 January 1798, by the upsetting of the pinnace, in Cawsand Bay near Plymouth
Richard.
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