VICE-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES V. PENROSE
The Penrose family is one of the most ancient in Cornwall. The name signifies the Head of the Moor, and it belonged par excellence to the Land's End, where, at S. Sennen, we find the Penroses seated as landed gentry from the time of Edward I. They had branches in Sithney, Manaccan, and S. Anthony-in-Meneage. They mated with the best in the county—the Trefusis, the Killigrews, the Eriseys, and the Boscawens. One broke away from the circle of beautiful Celtic names, and took to wife a daughter of Sir Anthony Buggs, Knt. Happy must the lady have felt to cease to be Miss Buggs and become Madame Penrose!
Charles Vinicombe Penrose was the youngest son and child of the Rev. John Penrose, vicar of Gluvias, and was born at Gluvias, June 20th, 1759. In the spring of 1775 he was appointed midshipman on board the Levant frigate, Captain Murray, under whose command he passed the whole period of his service during the next twenty-two years of his life, and who (with one trifling exception) was the only captain with whom he ever sailed, either as midshipman or as lieutenant. In 1779 young Penrose was made lieutenant, and was appointed to the Cleopatra.
All the summer and a part of the winter of 1780 were passed in cruising off the Flemish bank. Captain Murray was then sent with a small squadron to intercept the trade which the Americans were carrying on with Gothenburg by passing to the north of the Shetland Isles. The biting cold made this a source of extreme hardship, and the young lieutenant, now first lieutenant, suffered severely. The illness of the captain, and the incapacity of some of the officers, threw on him almost the whole care of the ship, and this under circumstances that required the skill and caution of the seaman to be ever on the alert.
VICE-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES V. PENROSE, K.C.B.
"I had, however," he wrote, "no time to nurse myself, though I had pleurisy, besides my chilblains. For these latter I used to have warm vinegar and sal ammoniac brought frequently on deck, and, to allay the raging pain, dipped thin gloves into the mixture, and put them on under thick worsted mittens. At one time rheumatism had so got hold of me that I was not able to stand, but lay wrapped up in flannel on an arm-chest, on the forepart of the quarter-deck, to give my orders.