Royal Naval Biography/Dashwood, William Bateman
WILLIAM BATEMAN DASHWOOD, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1818.]
This officer’s first commission bears date Jan. 28, 1808: he lost an arm while serving as senior lieutenant of the Active frigate. Captain (now Sir James A.) Gordon, Nov. 29, 1811[1]; obtained the rank of commander, May 19, 1812; and was granted a pension for the loss of his limb, on the 31st July following. His next appointment was, July 22, 1813, to the Snap brig, of 12 guns, in which vessel he fell in with five French privateer luggers, near St. Vallery, on the morning of the 1st Nov. in that year, and succeeded in capturing le Lion, of 16 guns and 69 men, five of whom were killed and six severely wounded: the Snap’s rigging was much cut by the enemy’s fire, but not an officer or man received the slightest injury.
On the 15th Nov. 1814, Captain Dashwood was removed to the Prometheus sloop, which vessel formed part of a squadron sent to cruise across the Bay of Biscay, in order to intercept Napoleon Buonaparte, in his meditated flight from France, in July, 1815[2]. She was also attached to the force under Lord Exmouth, at the battle of Algiers; from which place Captain Dashwood had previously succeeded in bringing away, disguised as midshipmen, the wife and daughter of the British Consul, leaving a boat to bring off their infant child, coming down in a basket with the surgeon, and three young gentlemen of the quarter-deck, whose intentions were discovered owing to the cries of the baby, and who were all seized and confined as slaves in the usual dungeon, as were also fourteen other persons who accompanied them.
On the 23rd July, 1818, Captain Dashwood was appointed to the acting command of the Creole frigate, fitting at Sheerness for the South American station, where he was posted into the Amphion 32, under orders for England, Oct. 21, in the same year. He married, April 17, 1820, Louisa Henrietta, only daughter of Frederick Bode, Esq.
Agents.– Messrs. Maude and Co.