by John Marshall

“ Captain Rowley discovered a convoy of twenty-one sail at anchor in the harbour of Rovigno. Conceiving the capture of them feasible, he communicated his intentions to Captain Hoste, who led in, and a firing was commenced on the batteries. After some resistance they were abandoned; when the royal marines of each ship landed, drove the enemy out of the town, disabled the guns, and demolished the different works, without suffering any other accident than one private, belonging to the Eagle, wounded. The enemy scuttled the greater part of the vessels ”

“ In May, 1806, the Eagle formed part of the squadron under Sir W. Sidney Smith, stationed off the coasts of Naples and Sicily; and on the 11th of that month took an active part in the reduction of the island of Capri, on which occasion he had 2 men killed, and 11, including her first Lieutenant, wounded.
On the 27th Nov., 1811, Captain Rowley captured la Corceyre French frigate, pierced for 40 guns, but only 28 mounted, with a complement of 170 seamen and 130 soldiers, laden with 300 tons of wheat, and a quantity of military and other stores, from Trieste, bound to Corfu. ”

“ In April 1814, he attended Louis 18th from England to France; and in the following month, he obtained the royal permission to accept and wear the insignia of a Knight of the Imperial Military Order of Maria Theresa, which had been conferred upon him by the Emperor of Austria, “in testimony of the high sense entertained by that sovereign of his distinguished gallantry and services.” He was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral on the 4th June 1814, nominated a Knight Commander of the Most Honorable Military Order of the Bath, Jan. ”

“ He subsequently captured the French 18-gun corvette Decouverte, the brig-privateer Brunette, of ten guns and eighty men, and several other armed vessels, on the Channel station. Captain Rowley left l’Unité, in consequence of bursting a blood-vessel; but after the lapse of a few months, he was appointed to the Prince George 98, flag-ship of his brother-in-law, the late Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, Bart. In the spring of 1801, he was removed into the Boadicea frigate, and entrusted with the command of a light squadron, employed in Quiberon Bay, where he greatly molested the enemy. ”

“ The subject of this memoir was made a lieutenant in 1789; and appointed acting captain of the Hussar frigate in the summer of 1794. He subsequently commanded the Lynx sloop, and captured numerous French merchant vessels, on the North American station. In Mar. 1796, being then acting captain of the Cleopatra frigate, he captured l’Aurore, French privateer, of ten guns. He afterwards resumed the command of the Hussar, at Halifax, and continued in that ship until paid off, about the end of the same year. ”