Nov. 1827 till Feb. 1829, he commanded the Royal Charlotte yacht, at Dublin; and on the 12th of Dec. in the latter year, he was appointed to the North Star 28, in which ship he has already visited Madeira, Barbadoes, Jamaica, Halifax, and Bermuda.
On the 5th of Feb. 1831, a court-martial was assembled at Portsmouth, to enquire into circumstances connected with the punishment and death of William Heritage, a boy belonging to the North Star, and to try Lord William Paget for his conduct on the occasion. On the 7th, having heard the evidence produced by the father of the deceased boy, in support of the charge, and by Lord William in his defence, together with what he had to allege in aid thereof, and having maturely and deliberately weighed and considered the whole, the court decided that the charge of cruelly flogging the said William Heritage had not been proved against the prisoner, but that it was “altogether unfounded and malicious;” and that the death of the boy was in no way to be attributed to the conduct of his captain; that it had been proved that the said boy had received, during the period of his service on board the North Star, only twelve lashes; that the offence committed by the deceased was sufficient to justify the infliction of those lashes; and that the order for the punishment of the boy subsequently given, which appears to have led to his jumping overboard, was also justified by his repeated misconduct. The court did, therefore, adjudge Lord William Paget to be “most fully and most honorably acquitted.”
His lordship married, Jan. 22d, 1827, the only daughter of Lieutenant-General Baron de Rottenburg, Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order.
FRANCIS FEAD, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1826.]
Was made a lieutenant on the 30th of Dec. 1806; appointed to the Monmouth 64, armed en flûte, May 12th, 1813; removed from that ship to the Leander 50, Captain
