Henry Digby and Alcmene

[MQ]

Hello All -
I'm new to this forum; this is my first post.
I'm trying to find out more information about Alcmene (32, 1794) between the evacuation of Naples and the battle of Copenhagen. For much of this time she was captained by Henry Digby, including when she helped capture the Spanish frigate Santa Brigida in 1799. Winfield, in British Warships in the Age of Sail (and the pages on Threedecks for Alcmene and Digby), gives Digby's command as starting on 4.1800 and names Hope as her captain for 1799. But, as I wrote on the Threedecks page "Capture of Spanish Treasure Ships, 15th October 1799 - 17th" before I thought to join this forum, many other sources (the London Gazette 15197:1094, Naval Chronicle 2:542 and Naval History of GB p.402) all agree that Digby was in fact in command at this time.
Does anyone know of any other sources that might identify when Digby took over from Hope?
A related question is if anyone has any information on when Alcmene departed Palermo (under Hope, after helping evacuate the Neapolitan royal family) and/or arrived at the Lisbon station?
I've exhausted the sources that I know of without finding the answers. In welcoming me to the forum, Cy suggested a trip to Kew. This won't happen any time soon, so any suggestions of where else to look would be much appreciated.

[jon_ystrad]

You can search the National Archives Discovery online, and order copies of documents from them.

I found the attached if it is of use, which is the summary of this document

[Navclio]

The Naval Chronicle was a monthly magazine for British navy officers and members of the public interested in naval affairs. It began publication in 1799 and might have had announcements of command appointments. (A lot of the content was biographies of important officers of earlier times.) There might also have been an article shortly afterwards about the evacuation of the Neapolitan royal family.

My records say that I have a complete collection of PDFs of the semi-annual volumes of The Naval Chronicle (six issues per volume), all downloaded from on-line sources. However I can't find vols. 1–2 right now. Some of the material I have downloaded has been made unavailable since. Searching with Google for <"Naval Chronicle"> (in quotes) and the year (also in quotes) should find the relevant issues if they are available. They should find stuff at archive.org but you could go directly to their site and search there.

I can recommend a professional researcher who has obtained the pages of captains' journals masters' logs, "in letters" (reports by admirals or captains on detached service), and a court-martial record for me. I think his rates are reasonable, but if you need Alcmene's captain's journal for an extended period it might take him several hours. The journals would be signed by the captain and each new captain began a new "Journal of the Proceedings of His Majesty's Ship Alcmene." I think that probably about 80% or so of the journals I requested were on file at The National Archives in Kew. Since I was looking for accounts of the doings of squadrons, not single ships, I could make do with partial coverage. This was for the 1740s; the availability rate might be higher for 1799–1800, but it's probably not 100%.

[MQ]

Thank you for the replies. The reference from Kew will, I trust, be useful if and when I can get there.
The Naval Chronicle is certainly the best source I've found and helps narrow down the time when Digby was appointed (he was flag-captain of Leviathan under Duckworth in the May 1799 Monthly Register and captured a prize in Alcmene on 6 July) but I was hoping that there would be a specific date for his appointment. If it comes to hiring a researcher, I would be happy to have a recommendation - though I'd rather go myself if I can. My goal of better understanding Alcmene's history after Naples may require some teasing out...