that, latterly, these attacks have occurred so frequently, accompanied with a spitting of blood, and have so debilitated and shattered his constitution, that it is only by an almost constant medical attendance that he is enabled to exist; that his expenses for this advice and attendance have increased so much that he is no longer able to defray them, having no other income but his half-pay, as a Commander in your Majesty’s navy, to support a wife and five children.
“That your Memorialist does not complain that the period of his natural life will most probably be considerably shortened in consequence of these internal wounds and bruises – he received them in your Majesty’s service, and is content; but he most humbly prays that, if on due examination, his case may appear to merit some relief, your Majesty may be most graciously pleased to take it into your royal consideration.
We should here observe, that Mr. Mauritius Power, the surgeon of the Buzzard, had pressed Captain Smith to take a smart-ticket; but which he refused to do, under the idea that “a short time on shore would re-establish his health.” He was subsequently examined by medical men at the Admiralty, who reported that his hurts were not equal to the loss of a limb! and therefore he has never received any compensation whatever. Since that examination, part of his breast-bone has exfoliated; and strange to say, his health is now (1830) much better than it was ten years ago.
On the 18th Aug. 1815, Captain Smith was appointed to the Alert brig, and sent to the river Tyne, to keep the refractory seamen there in order. He afterwards cruised for the suppression of smuggling, on the North Sea station, and made eleven seizures during his three years’ service. In the afternoon of Dec. 19, 1816, being then on the edge of the Garbard sand, and running for the Downs, he observed the Maeander frigate working towards Yarmouth, and standing, as he thought, rather too near that dangerous shoal. Entertaining no great opinion of North Sea pilots in general, from having repeatedly witnessed their extreme ignorance in many instances, he made the signal to the Maeander, that she was standing into danger, which signal was seen and answered, but unfortunately the frigate soon afterwards struck upon the sand. Her perilous situation, during the ensuing night and day, has been described at p. 946 of Vol. II Part II.
