xlviii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



lives and one boat, reached two English ships after five days' rowing, 

 with great suffering, on the open sea, close to the line. This ad- 

 venture happened in August 1789. 



His name had already been for two years on the books of His 

 Majesty's - ship 'Colossus'; but on his return from the East he 

 joined the ' Latona,' Captain Albemarle Bertie, and afterwards the 

 * Aquilon,' in which he was engaged in the memorable action off 

 Brest, of the 1st of June 1794, during which ten of the enemy's ships 

 were dismasted and seven taken, and after which Lord Howe brought 

 into Portsmouth six Erench ships of the line, which the King and 

 Royal family came to inspect at the end of the month. They went 

 on board the ' Aquilon ' to sail round the fleet, and thus young Beau- 

 fort made, probably, his first acquaintance with royalty. He was for 

 some years the sole surviving officer of that great battle. He fol- 

 lowed his captain, the Hon. Eobert Stopford, to the * Phaeton,' in 

 which ship he was serving when Vice-Admiral Cornwallis made his 

 celebrated retreat from the Erench fleet on the 17th of June 1795. 

 In this ship, afterwards commanded by Captain James Nicholl Morris, 

 he assisted at the capture and destruction of many of the enemy's 

 ships, and of nine privateers and other vessels. It was in May 1796 

 that he obtained his rank of Lieutenant, and in October 1800 that 

 his first great opportunity of distinguishing himself occurred. While 

 cruising off the coast of Malaga his commander observed that a 

 Spanish polacca, the * San Josef,' and a Erench privateer brig, had 

 taken refuge under the fortress of Euengirola; and at night the 

 young lieutenant was sent in command of the ' Phaeton's ' boats to 

 board the ' San Josef.' The Erench brig intercepted the launch ; but 

 the other crews did their work without its aid. The resistance they 

 encountered was desperate ; but they obtained their prize, with the 

 loss of one man to thirteen of the enemy, Beaufort, however, receiving 

 no less than nineteen wounds. This made him a commander, with 

 a small pension. 



The two next years were spent on shore, but not in idleness. 

 Miss Edgeworth tells us that they were " devoted, with unremitting 

 zealous exertion," to establishing a line of telegraphs from Dublin 

 to Galway, an object of great importance as long as the west of 

 Ireland was perpetually liable to invasion from continental enemies. 

 He received the thanks of Government for his efforts, declining any 

 other acknowledgment. 



Once more at sea, he was heard of from the East first, and then 

 the West. As commander of the ' Woolwich,' 44, he convoyed from 

 India sixteen Indiamen in 1806. In 1807 he was surveying the 

 River La Plata ; and he afterwards went to the Cape and the Medi- 

 terranean. In 1809 he was hovering about the enemy's merchant- 

 men on the coast of Spain and at Quebec, being in command of the 

 sloop-of-war ' Blossom.' In 1810 he obtained his post rank, and 

 the command of the ' Eredericksteen ' frigate ; but before he joined 

 he was employed in protecting the outward-bound trade to Portugal, 

 Cadiz, and Gibraltar, in accompanying two Spanish line-of-battle 

 ships to Minorca, and in acting for some months as captain to the 



