MEMOIR OF THE LATE LIEUT. E. W. TUPPER, OF H. M. S. SYBILLE. By deadly sufferings now no more oppress'd, Paraphrase. THE subject of this memoir, the third son of John E. Tupper, Esq., by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John Brock, Esq., was born in the island of Guernsey. Having received the rudiments of his education at Harrow, where, although so young, he was remarked for an ardent love of reading, united to a very retentive memory, he commenced his naval career in the Victory, of 110 guns, under the care and patronage of the present Lord De Saumarez, with whom he continued in the Baltic until he struck his flag. Being sent occasionally to serve in smaller vessels for the greater facility of acquiring practical seamanship, he in one instance narrowly escaped a watery grave, the Bellette, 18-gun brig, being lost with all her crew, excepting five, the cruise after he left her to rejoin the flag ship. Having wintered on that station in 1812 in the Ranger, of 28 guns, Captain Acklom, he was employed in that ship early the following spring, in the reduction of Dantzic, then occupied by a French garrison. He served on the American coast, during the latter part of the war, in the Asia, 74, and was present at the disastrous attack of New Orleans, on the 8th of January, 1815, forming one of a party under Captain Rowland Money, landed from the fleet to co-operate with the army. On the night of the storm, this party, in conjunction with the 85th Light Infantry, under Colonel Thornton, attacked some fortified works on the right bank of the Mississippi, and were completely successful after sustaining a trifling loss, but the failure of the main assault rendered this success unavailing. The cannon on these outworks appear to have enfiladed the principal defences on the left bank of the river, the attempt to carry which cost the army so many men; and had the main assault been deferred until these guns could be turned against the garrison, the city would probably have been captured. In the same year he joined the flag ship of Sir Thomas Fremantle, who, having been an intimate friend of his late uncle, Sir Isaac Brock, kindly assured him of his influence and support; but ere he had attained the requisite age for promotion, peace took place and blighted all the bright prospects with which he entered the service. In November, 1817, on his return in the Active frigate, Captain Philip Carteret,* from the Jamaica station, he passed at the Naval College at Portsmouth, and was one of four midshipmen complimented as having undergone a superior examination. In 1823 he was appointed to the Revenge, 76, Sir Harry Neale's flag ship in the Mediterranean, and took a passage to join her in the Sybille, of 48 guns. Captain Yorke, † command * The late Sir Philip Carteret Sylvester, Bart. and C. B. + The present Earl of Hardwicke. |