On the 20th April following, our sailor was again at sea, and the action was fought between the Indefatigable and the Virginie, which ended—as usual with Pellew—in victory. 'He takes everything!' said the brave French Captain Bergeret, weeping bitterly as he surrendered his sword to his opponent.
November, 1798, witnessed the well-known futile descent of the French upon Ireland. In the ineffectual steps taken by the British fleet to prevent it, Pellew had no share beyond watching Brest, and reporting progress. But in January, 1799, he fell in with the Droits de l'Homme, and, in the midst of a furious gale, and after an engagement of eleven hours (during the latter part of which the Indefatigable was assisted by the Amazon, Captain Reynolds),[125] the French ship was driven on shore in the Bay of Audierne. The Amazon was also wrecked, and the Indefatigable herself had a narrow escape.
The capture of a few privateers is all we now have to chronicle until we hear of Sir Edward making the daring proposal of attacking with a few frigates the whole of the French fleet then in harbour at Brest; but, whether from timidity on the part of the Admiralty, or, as was suggested, from the jealousy of Pellew's superior officer, Lord Bridport, the offer was declined.
The Impetueux, one of his captures from the French, was his next ship; and in her, at Bantry Bay, he promptly quelled a mutiny, which, but for his courage and sagacity, would probably have extended to other ships, whose disaffected crews, demoralized by the reports of the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, were, it is said, only waiting a successful result of the rising on board Sir Edward's ship. The Impetueux soon after joined Earl St. Vincent in the Mediterranean, and formed part of the force which pursued the combined fleets from the Mediterranean to Brest.
In the siege of Ferrol, August, 1800, the Impetueux played an important part; but, Pellew's advice (which seemed to Sir J. B. Warren too dangerous to follow) not being taken, the place was not captured; though it was afterwards discovered that Pellew's advice should have been followed, and that the garrison were quite prepared to lay down their arms.
A short period of retirement which he spent in the bosom of his family at Trefusis, on the shores of Falmouth harbour, followed.
The year 1801 saw him nearly at the head of the list of post-captains, and appointed a Colonel of Marines. In the following year he was elected Member for Barnstaple; but inactive posts did not suit him, and at the very first moment possible he returned to his beloved profession, being appointed to the Tonnant, of 80 guns, one of the Channel fleet. Detached from the squadron, together with the Mars and the Spartiate and five other sail of the line, which were placed under his orders, he blockaded the French at Corunna and at Ferrol. But he was recalled by the Ministry in order to support the Government against an attack made upon their Naval Administration by Pitt, and on Pellew's excellent speech on this occasion the vindication of the Ministry is said to have in a great measure depended.
On 23rd April, 1804, he was promoted to be Rear-Admiral of the White, and was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, hoisting his flag in the Culloden. Whilst on this station he was ever on the alert for French and Dutch privateers, of most of which the Admiral himself or his captains never failed to give a good account, to the great advantage of British commerce. The destruction of the enemy's fleet at Batavia, on 2nd November, 1805, was an expedition on a larger scale. In this Sir Edward's son, Captain Fleetwood Pellew,[126] in the Terpsichore, took a prominent part; and a successful attack upon Sourabaya, in Java, soon followed. This sums up his Oriental experiences; and in February, 1809, he sailed from India with a fleet of Indiamen under his convoy, and safely arrived once more in England, after a narrow escape during a severe gale. The spring of the following year, 1810, saw him, on board the Christian VII., and Commander-in-Chief in the North Sea, effectively blockading the Dutch fleet in the Scheldt.
In 1811, in the Caledonia, he succeeded Sir Charles Cotton as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, jealously watching the coast from the Ionian Islands to Gibraltar, and striving, with the utmost energy and success, to promote the efficiency and welfare of all who served under him. He was present at the capitulation of Genoa in February, 1814; and shortly afterwards saw the termination of the war, and the confinement of Napoleon as a prisoner in the island of Elba.
Of this happy event advantage was taken by the Government to confer on our hero the dignity of a baron—an unexpected honour to him—and he chose 'Exmouth of Canonteign' as his title, that being an estate which he had purchased as a family property. He also obtained the pension usually granted for services so distinguished as his had been (it amounted to £2,000 a year), and the next year he received the additional honour of being made a G.C.B.