In 1845, while still lieutenant, Charles Jenkin acted as Admiral
Pigot's flag captain in the Cove of Cork, where there were some
thirty pennants; and about the same time, closed his career by an
act of personal bravery. He had proceeded with his boats to the
help of a merchant vessel, whose cargo of combustibles had taken
fire and was smouldering under hatches; his sailors were in the
hold, where the fumes were already heavy, and Jenkin was on deck
directing operations, when he found his orders were no longer
answered from below: he jumped down without hesitation and slung
up several insensible men with his own hand. For this act, he
received a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty expressing a
sense of his gallantry; and pretty soon after was promoted
Commander, superseded, and could never again obtain employment.
In 1828 or 1829, Charles Jenkin was in the same watch with another
midshipman, Robert Colin Campbell Jackson, who introduced him to
his family in Jamaica. The father, the Honourable Robert Jackson,
Custos Rotulorum of Kingston, came of a Yorkshire family, said to
be originally Scotch; and on the mother's side, counted kinship
with some of the Forbeses.
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