CAPTAIN HUGH DOWNMAN, a brief memoir of whose public services is here submitted to the reader, is descended from a respectable family in Devonshire, of which his father was a younger branch. His great-grandfather was a man of considerable property in that county; and he is related to Dr. Downman, of Exeter, to Colonel Downman, of the artillery, and to Mr. Downman, the artist. To the two last mentioned gentlemen be bears the relationship of first cousin, and of second to the first.

He was born near Plymouth, about the year 1765; and, in October 1776, at the early age of eleven, he entered into the navy, under the auspices of Captain Michael Graham, in the Thetis frigate. How long he remained in that ship, or on what station he was employed in her, we are uninformed.

In August, 1778, he joined the Arethusa, Captain Marshal; in which, in the month of March following, he had the misfortune to be cast away, on the coast of France. The Arethusa was lost upon the rocks, near Ushant, while in pursuit of an enemy; but the crew were all saved, and experienced the most humane treatment from the French.