ritish fleet on the American station, charged with a commission, jointly with his brother, William Howe, to make peace with or war upon the Americans.
They failed to secure peace, and made war. After leaving the Delaware with his fleet, in 1778, he had an encounter off Rhode Island with a French fleet, under the Count d'estaing, when he disappeared from the American waters.
In 1782 he was made admiral of the blue, and created an English viscount; and in September of that year he relieved Gibraltar, and received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament.
In 1787 he was made admiral of the white, and in August the next year was raised to an earldom.
Because of a complete victory over the French, which he obtained in 1794, he was rewarded with a gold medal, the Order of the Garter, and the commission of admiral of the fleet, which he resigned in 1797.. His last service in the royal navy was persuading mutineers at Spithead to return to duty.
He died in England, Aug. 5, 1799.
In St. P
mingo, and was first lieutenant of the Enterprise, which captured a Tripolitan corsair.
He afterwards commanded an expedition that destroyed some feluccas, laden with wheat, under the batteries at Tripoli.
where he was wounded.
In October, 1803,
David Porter. he was captured in the Philadelphia when she grounded in the harbor of Tripoli, and was a prisoner and slave for eighteen months. In 1806, in command of the Enterprise, he fought and severely handled twelve Spanish gunboats near Gibraltar.
In 1812 he was commissioned captain and placed in command of the Essex, in which he made a long and successful cruise in the Pacific Ocean.
This cruise was one of the most remarkable recorded in history.
He had swept around the southern cape of South America, and up its western coast, and on March 14, 1813, after being enveloped in thick fogs several days, he saw the city and harbor of Valparaiso, the chief seaport town of Chile.
There he learned, for the first time, that Chile had