 It is not even clear when he entered the Navy, although he was gazetted lieutenant in December 1777 aged 22, quite a bit older than most of his contemporaries.Within a year of promotion, Bertie had witnessed combat on the repeating frigate at the First Battle of Ushant, a brief and inconclusive action which resulted in a court martial for Admiral Hugh Palliser, a court martial at which Commander Bertie (as he by then was), was called on to give evidence in 1779.The intervening two years had been highly eventful, Bertie spending most of it as a prisoner of war in France after "Fox" had been taken by the larger French on 11 September 1778.