WILLIAM HENRY SMYTH, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1824.]
Knight of the Royal Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit, Fellow of the Royal, the Antiquarian, the Astronomical, and the Geographical Societies of London; Member of the Society for the Statistics and Natural History of Tuscany; and of the Academy of Sciences of Palermo.
This gallant and scientific officer is the only son of the late Joseph Brewer Palmer Smyth, of New Jersey, in North America, Esq. by Georgina Caroline, grand-daughter of the Reverend M. Pilkington. By the paternal line he is a descendant of the celebrated Captain John Smith, whose intrepidity and attainments were instrumental in the colonization of Virginia; and the armorial bearings so nobly won by him, are still worn by the family.
During the American revolution, Mr. J. B. Smyth took up arms as a loyalist, and was with General Burgoyne at the battles which preceded the unfortunate catastrophe at Saratoga. The peace which established the independence of the colonies, depriving him of very considerable landed property, be returned to America, by permission, to substantiate his claims on the British Government, – but suddenly died. The Lords of the Treasury, however, assigned a small annuity for the support of Mrs. Smyth and her two children; and this is the only remuneration they have obtained for the wreck of a large fortune.
The subject of this memoir was born at Westminster, Jan. 21st, 1788; and was intended by his relations for a civil employment; but having early evinced that ardent predilection for nautical life which characterizes English youth, he embarked on board a West Indiaman, during the short peace that followed the treaty of Amiens. The ship in which he thus commenced his career as a sailor was commanded by Mr. John King, an intelligent Master in the royal navy, to whose careful tuition he is indebted for the rudiments of seamanship and navigation. Happening to be at Tobago, when the arrival of a British squadron, under Commodore (afterwards Sir Samuel) Hood, announced the renewal of hostilities, Mr. Smyth’s anxiety to enter the King’s service received addi-
