Page 215 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

of those at Deptford, affording employment to thousands of
people. The dockyard was a private concern, owned by the Kyd
family, whose founder occupied a large and handsome house on
the bank of the river overlooking the yards.
On February 4th, Loch embarked on board one of the pilot
boats, with Aclam and Elphinstonc, and proceeded to Kedgeree,
going on board the Eden on the following day. On the 6th,
Admiral Blackwood joined them, and Loch ‘had now to bid
farewell to Mr. Adam and Elphinstonc, with whom I had lived
for several weeks on the most intimate terms of friendship. It
was a last farewell, the climate destroyed them both.’ The Eden
sailed at daylight on the 7th, and anchored at Madras on the 24th,
‘a most tedious and tiresome passage’, owing to contrary winds,
which reduced the speed of the ship to not more than twenty to
thirty miles a day, ‘but the sea was without a ripple’. The Eden
stayed one day at Madras, and then sailed for Trincomalee, which
was reached on March 7th, ‘thus we had been just four weeks in
running a distance that would not have been more than ten days,
had it been during the North-cast Monsoon’. On March 13th
1821, the Eden weighed, in company with the Leander and the
Liverpool, and ran out of Trincomalee Harbour on her homeward
voyage to England.
At the end of his diary, Loch mentions the number of men
whom he lost during the time that the Eden was in the East. The
ship carried one hundred and twenty-five men and nineteen offi­
cers when she sailed from Plymouth. Of these, seventeen seamen
and four officers died, and two seamen lost their lives in accidents.
As Loch says, the number of casualties was ‘a large proportion
for so small a complement’. But the number of deaths was
probably no higher than the average proportion in other ships
which were engaged in similar duties in the East.
Some time after leaving the Gulf, Loch was given command of
H.M.S. Victory and, in 1841, he was Superintendent of the Quar­
antine of Stangatc Creek, in the Medway. In 1847, he became
Naval A.D.C. to Queen Victoria, three years later, he was pro­
moted to Rear-Admiral of the Blue, and in 1862, he was put on
the Reserved Half-Pay List, as an Admiral.
Loch was a personal friend of Queen Adelaide, who left with
him the copy of a memorandum intimating her wishes regarding
her funeral arrangements. He took Princess Amelia in his ship
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