1807 - Capture of Madeira


 
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Naval history of Great Britain - Vol. IV
by
William James
1807 Colonial Expeditions - Coast of Africa 350

There Jeffery resided, following his trade of a blacksmith, until the summer of 1810, when the noise which his case made in England induced the British government to send for him home. He was brought first to Halifax, Nova-Scotia ; and thence, in the 10-gun schooner Thistle, Lieutenant Peter Procter, to Portsmouth. On the 22d of October, Jeffery attended at the admiralty, where he received his discharge, and had the R taken off his name ; by which he became entitled to all arrears of pay. The friends of the late (for he had then, as will be seen presently, ceased to bear the title) Captain Lake made him a liberal compensation for the hardships he had undergone, and Jeffery returned to his native village of Polpero a much richer man than he had quitted it three years before. �

On the 5th and 6th of February, 1810, which was soon after it had become known that Jeffery was living, a court-martial assembled on board the Gladiator at Portsmouth, to try Captain Lake for having put a seaman of the Recruit on shore upon an uninhabited island. Captain Lake admitted that he landed Jeffery upon Sombrero, but urged as his excuse, that he " thought the island was inhabited ; " thereby not only exposing is own ignorance, but impugning the professional knowledge of his two lieutenants, and particularly of his master, of whom, as Captain Lake admits, he had to inquire the name of the island. The court, which was numerously and respectably composed, found Captain the Honourable Warwick Lake guilty of the charge, and sentenced him to be dismissed from the British navy.

Colonial Expeditions - Coast of Africa

As a necessary consequence of the occupation of Portugal by the French, the island of Madeira fell into the hands of the British On the 24th of December a British squadron, consisting of the

Gun Ship  
74 Centaur Rear-admiral (b.) Sir Samuel Hood,
Captain William Henry Webley
York Captain Robert Barton
Captain Captain Isaac Wolley
64 Intrepid Captain Richard Worsley
Frigate Africaine  
Alceste  
Shannon  
Success  

escorting some transports having a body of troops under Major General Beresford, anchored in Funchal bay, within a cable's length of the forts, to be ready to act hostilely, should any opposition be experienced. None, however, was offered ; and before dark the troops were landed and in possession of all the forts. On the next day the terms of capitulation were agreed to, and on the following day, the 26th, duly signed by the governor of the island, Pedro Fagundes Bacellar d'Antas e Meneres,

� A London newspaper reported in October 1810 that Jeffery entered into an arrangement with the family of Lord Lake, which was stated to be "advantagsous for himself as honourable to them."

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