Islands and Jamaica stations, and cruised with very considerable success against the enemy. On the 10th Dec. 1796, in company with the Mermaid frigate, he captured the General Leveau, French corvette of 16 guns, near St. Domingo.
In the spring of 1799, our officer commissioned the Nereìde of 36 guns; and on the 2d March, in the following year, captured la Vengeance privateer, of 16 guns and 174 men, in the Bay of Biscay; the next day he re-captured an American ship, with a cargo of coffee, sugar, and tobacco, valued at 30,000l. The Nereìde was afterwards ordered to the West Indies.
On the 11th Sept. 1800, Captain Watkins being on a cruise off Curaçoa, had the good fortune to acquire information that 1500 French troops from Guadaloupe had made good their landing a short time before, and were at that very moment in actual contest with the Dutch inhabitants, who claimed the protection of his Britannic Majesty. With the most prompt decision, he pushed for the harbour, landed his men and some cannon, occupied the forts, and thereby induced the French to evacuate the island on the 22d. In the mean time, the Governor entered into a capitulation, by which Curaçoa and its dependencies, together with the vessels in the harbour, in all forty-four sail, and such property as was on board of them on the 10th, were surrendered to the Nereìde.
Captain Watkins returned to England, in Feb. 1801; and from that period we lose sight of him until the beginning of 1808, when he was appointed to the Majestic of 74 guns; from the command of which ship he was afterwards dismissed by the sentence of a court-martial, for a breach of naval discipline towards the late Admiral Wells. He was superannuated, with the rank of Rear-Admiral, June 11, 1814.
In 1809, our officer published a work entitled, “The Young Naval Hero; or Hints to Parents and Guardians, on educating and preparing Young Gentlemen for his Majesty’s Navy,” 8vo.
Agents.– Messrs. Maude.
JOHN MONKTON, Esq
[Superannuated Rear-Admiral.]
This officer entered the naval service in 1765, and served upwards of eleven years as a Midshipman and Master’s-
