Besides her collected poems and several occasional pieces in verse, Miss Williams wrote 'Julia, a novel' (1790, 2 vols. 12mo), and the story, said to be from life, of 'Perourou, the Bellows-mender' (1801), now best known in its adaptation for the stage as 'The Lady of Lyons ' by the first Lord Lytton. She was on terms of close friendship with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, of whose 'Paul et Virginie' she issued a version in 1795 (numerous editions); and she translated other works, including the 'Travels' of Von Humboldt and one of the tales of J. de Maistre. But it was by her political writings that she was best known, and these, even now, are worth reading, not as history of events, but of one, and that an important, phase of opinion and thought. They are:
- 'Letters written in France in the Summer of 1790,' 1790, 12mo.
- 'Letters containing a Sketch of the Politics of France from the 31st of May 1793 till the 28th of July 1794,' 1795, 2 vols. 12mo.
- 'Letters from France containing many New Anecdotes relative to the French Revolution and the present State of French Manners' 1792-6, 4 vols. 12mo.
- 'A Tour in Switzerland, or a View of the present State of the Governments and Manners of those Cantons, with comparative Sketches of the present State of Paris,' 1798, 2 vols. 8vo.
- 'Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic towards the close of the Eighteenth Century,' 1801, 2 vols. 8vo. It is in this work that she has given a history of the revolution and counter-revolution at Naples in 1799, and a criticism on the conduct of Nelson, based on her history, which is distinctly false in every detail (a copy in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 34391, is enriched with several autograph notes by Nelson).
- 'The Political and Confidential Correspondence of Louis XVI,' 1803, 3 vols. 8vo. This called forth 'A Refutation of the Libel on the Memory of the late King of France, published by Helen Maria Williams under the title of "Political and Confidential Correspondence of Louis XVI," by A. F. Bertrand de Moleville; translated from the original manuscript by R. C. Dallas,' 1804, 8vo, in which not only the work thus specifically named, but all Miss Williams's earlier works are severely condemned; she herself is referred to as ' a woman whose lips and pen distil venom;' 'whose wretched pen has been long accumulating on itself disgrace after disgrace by writings of a similar nature' similar, that is, to the present * scandalous production.'
- 'A Narrative of the Events which have taken place in France from the landing of Napoleon Bonaparte on the 1st of March 1815 to the Restoration of Louis XVIII,' 1815, 8vo.
- 'Letters on the Events which have passed in France since the Restoration in 1815,' 1819, 8vo.
[Gent. Mag. 1828, i. 373, 386; Michaud's Biogr. Universelle; Alger's Englishmen in the French Revolution; Julian's Hymnology; C. A. Coquerel's Souvenirs de la Ræévolution, traduits de l'Anglais de H. M. W., with an introduction; works named in text.]
WILLIAMS, HENRY (1792–1867), missionary, born at Nottingham on 11 Feb. 1792, was the third son of Thomas Williams (1754–1804) of Plumptre Hall, Nottingham, by his wife Mary (1758–1831), sister of John Marsh of St. Thomas's, Salisbury. On 10 May 1806 he entered the navy as midshipman, following the profession of his grandfather and three maternal uncles. He served under Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke [q. v.], a friend of the family, in the Barfleur and Christian VII, under Captain Lindsay in the Maida, under Captain Losac in the Galatea, under Captain De Repe in the Race Horse, under Captain Nash in the Saturn, under Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) Henry Hope [q. v.] in the Endymion, and under Captain Walpole in the Thames. At Copenhagen in 1807 he served both afloat and ashore, working at the land batteries, and was told off on a forlorn hope on the eve of the capitulation. On 13 Feb. 1810 he took part in the attack made by the boats of the Christian VII on nine French gunboats in the Basque Roads. In the Galatea he was present in an engagement off Tamatave on 20 May 1811, between three English frigates under Captain (Sir) Charles Marsh Schomberg [q. v.] and three French vessels of superior force, receiving a wound from which he never completely recovered. For this service he subsequently obtained a war medal. He saw further service at the Cape, the Mauritius, Madras, and Calcutta. He took part in the last naval engagement of the war that between the Endymion and the United States frigate President. He was placed on board the President with a prize crew, and nearly perished in a gale while carrying her to Bermuda. His peril gave rise to serious reflections, and eventually changed the course of his life. He was retired on half-pay with the rank of lieutenant on 30 Aug. 1815, and in 1827 was removed from the list by an admiralty order striking oft' retired officers who had taken holy orders.
In 1818 Williams married and took up his abode at Cheltenham, whence in 1820 he removed to Balden, and in September 1821 to Hampstead, in order to remain near his brother-in-law, Edward Garrard Marsh
