BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF BENJAMIN CALDWELL, ESQ. ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE SQUADRON

Summary

Illustrious deeds the British annals grace,

Which Time's rude barbarous hands shall ne'er efface;

Illustrious deeds! that make an equal claim

To future glory and immortal fame.

Anon.

To the generous mind, ever grareful is the task of recording the exploits of valour, of illustrating the actions of great men, of holding up to posterity a fair portraiture of that glorious conduct which may become the object of future emulation. The biographer who takes for his subject a British Naval Officer, can scarcely fail of finding his labours the labours of pleasure; for, so uniformly noble are the characters of our brave nautical protectors, that, in the words of our immortal poet, with the honest spirit of the historic Muse, we may exultingly exclaim, “They are all honourable men!” Admiral Caldwell, a faint outline of whose professional life we are now about to delineate, is not an exception from the general rule.

This esteemed Officer is the descendant of a respectable and ancient family, originally from Scotland. Some of its younger branches, however, as we learn from Craufurd's History of Renfrew, were in the army, and, going to Ireland at the time of the troubles in that country, they settled near Drogheda.

Mr. Caldwell, being destined for the naval service, went to the Royal Academy at Portsmouth in 1754. Having finished his nautical studies there, where he remained two years and a half, he went to sea, in the spring of 1756, in his Majesty's ship Isis, commanded by Capt. Edward Wheeler.