The Truro Grammar School, where the Rev. R. Polwhele was one of his schoolfellows, as appears from his 'Reminiscences,'[122] was the next scene of his combative energy; and here he thrashed so many of his schoolfellows, that, in order to escape a still severer thrashing with which the head-master (then Mr. Conon) threatened him, he ran away, and—against his grandfather's consent, but luckily for English glory, and for his own fame—went to sea. Whilst at Truro, hastening through the courtyard of the Red Lion Hotel to assist in putting out a fire, Pellew found the high back gate shut; but he sprang over it, and I remember the spot being pointed out to me in evidence of his strength and agility. His freaks on the water in after-life were of the most daring kind, and he often set the example on board ship, when no sailor could be found bold and active enough to perform some dangerous act of seamanship.
In the year 1770, being then about thirteen or fourteen years of age, Edward Pellew entered the Navy in the Juno, and went his first voyage to the Falkland Islands. Thence, under the same captain (Stott), he sailed in the Alarm to the Mediterranean, where, at Marseilles—a place which he was destined afterwards to save from destruction by its own inhabitants—he left the ship, in consequence of a gross and uncalled-for insult inflicted by the Captain on one of Pellew's brother midshipmen, named Cole.
He next joined the Blonde, under Captain Pownoll—who had been trained in the school of another Cornish naval hero, Admiral Boscawen—and with whom he soon became a prime favourite. It was on board the Blonde that he so alarmed and amused General Burgoyne, by standing on his head on the yard-arm when the General came on board to make his ill-starred expedition to America; and from the fore-yard of the same ship Pellew sprang to rescue a man who had fallen overboard. His magnificent physique and perfect courage enabled him to perform similar services on more than one occasion.
A smart engagement with a superior American force on Lake Champlain was his next exploit, in which, though unsuccessful, he found another opportunity of showing his coolness and bravery; and his services on this occasion gained him his lieutenant's commission. Shortly afterwards he very nearly captured, single-handed, the American Commander-in-Chief Arnold. The stock and buckle, which General Arnold left behind him in his flight, were long (and perhaps still are) preserved by the Pellew family.
Joining Burgoyne's unlucky army, and sharing in all the dangers and hardships which it underwent, Pellew, though only twenty years old, was summoned to the council of war at Saratoga, at which (against his own advice) it was resolved, in October, 1777, to capitulate to an American force of double the strength of the English. On his way home to England, in a transport, he fought an American privateer, and beat her off with his usual pluck and skill.
On receiving his commission to a guard-ship, he threatened to throw it up rather than remain at so inactive a post; and it was not until he declared his intention to command a privateer that he obtained his appointment to the Licorne, in which he sailed for Newfoundland in the spring of 1779. He returned, however, to England in the following winter, and joined the Apollo, under his old friend—his 'only one on earth,' as he said—Captain Pownoll, taking part in an engagement with the French frigate Stanislaus, on which occasion the Captain left to Pellew the honour of completing her capture.
The old sloop Hazard, of which he was promoted to be commander, was his next ship, and the East Coast of Scotland his station in the summer of 1780. Then followed the Pelican, a French prize, whilst commanding which he drove ashore some French privateers near the Isle of Bass, an exploit for which he was made a post-captain on board the Suffolk:—thus obtaining every step in his profession as a reward for some successful action. When it is added that, whilst in temporary command of the Artois, he captured on 1st July, 1782, the French frigate Prince of Robego, we may conclude this part of his career by observing that this was his last service before the Peace, which left him without any employment in His Majesty's service for four years.
The year 1783 saw him a denizen of Truro,[123] and married to Susan, daughter of J. Frowde, Esq., of Knowle, in Wiltshire. Doubtless, in his wooing, he told her—
'Of all the wonders of the mighty deep,
Tales that would make a maiden love to weep,
Of perils manifold and strange, and storms,
Battle, and wreck, and thousand feller forms,
Which Death, careering on the terrible sea,
Puts on to prove the true knight's constancy.'
It was probably about this time, also, that he became, according to Polwhele, a member of the Truro Corporation. He soon, however, removed to Flushing, near Falmouth, a curious little village, which had for Pellew, as we have seen, family associations, and where his elder brother, Samuel Humphry, formerly a surgeon of Marines, was collector of the Customs.