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Auction: 15002 - Orders, Decorations, Campaign Medals and Militaria
Lot: 340

Naval General Service 1793-1840, one clasp, Basque Roads 1809 (Richard Copeland, Midshipman.), suspension claw re-affixed, otherwise Mint State, with contemporary silver top-riband buckle

Richard Copeland served as Midshipman in H.M.S. Revenge during Lord Cochrane's successful destruction of a number of French ships, including four ships of the line, in the Basque Roads, off St. Nazaire, 11-12.4.1809.

Captain Richard Copeland, R.N., born 1792; son of John Copeland, Surgeon of the 7th Fusiliers and Staff Surgeon to H.R.H. the Duke of Kent when Governor of Nova Scotia, 'this gentleman, together with his wife and youngest son, was lost in the Frances transport, off Sable Island, in Dec. 1799. This officer [R. Copeland] entered the Navy 1 Jan. 1805 (under the auspices of Queen Charlotte and the Princess Augusta) as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Medusa 36, Capt. Sir John Gore' (O'Byrne refers); removed with the same captain to H.M.S. Revenge, and was serving in her (under the command of Captain the Hon. Charles Paget) when Sir Samuel Hood's squadron captured four French frigates off Rochefort, 25.9.1806; he rejoined Sir John Gore, as Midshipman, in H.M.S. Tonnant; subsequent service included in H.M.S. Belle Poule; Lieutenant, December 1811; served in H.M.S. Cygnet, February 1812-March 1815, when she was wrecked off the mouth of the Courantine River; appointed to the command of the surveying vessels H.M.S. Mastiff, from September 1825, and H.M.S. Meteor, from February 1830, both on the Mediterranean station; While 'at Gibraltar on one occasion he seized a notorious pirate; and, in 1834, he took captive, near Thasos, another famous marauder, Kara Mitzos, with 160 of his men, all of whom were delivered over to the Greek government. Being, however, liberated without trial, these plunderers resumed their former atrocities with redoubled zest, and falling again into the hands of Capt. Copleand, were sent to the Pacha of Thessalonica, by whom they were executed' (Ibid); placed on half-pay, February 1836, and promoted to Post-rank, June 1838. He published An Introduction to the Practice of Nautical Surveying, and the Construction of Sea Charts, &c., translated from the French of C.F. Beautems Beaupre, Hydrographer of the French Marine.

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