Royal Naval Biography/Smith, William (b)
WILLIAM SMITH (b), Esq.
[Commander.]
Was made a lieutenant on the 14th July, 1813. We first find him serving under the late Captain Thomas Alexander, C.B., with whom he arrived at Rangoon, in the Alligator 28, to assist in subduing the Burmese, Jan. 22d, 1825. The following is an outline of his services during the advance of the invading forces upon Ava.
On the 16th Feb. the water column, under Brigadier-General Cotton and Captain Alexander, moved up the Panlang river; and next day three unoccupied stockades were destroyed at Thesit. A few miles above that place, a division of boats, commanded by Lieutenant Smith, had two men mortally wounded by musketry from a stockade, which our sailors soon burnt to the ground, the enemy flying as they advanced to storm it. During the night of the 18th, some formidable fire-rafts were launched by the enemy; but, owing to the activity of Lieutenant Smith, their effect was totally lost. On the 19th, the extensive stockade of Panlang and its outworks were taken; on which occasion the Brigadier-General, in a letter to Sir Archibald Campbell, commander-in-chief of the army, thus expresses himself:–
“The alacrity, zeal, and courage manifested by the officers and men, collectively and individually, I beg to bring to your notice. I have requested permission of Captain Alexander to express my obligations to Lieutenant Smith, of H.M. ship Alligator, for the gallantry and judgment with which he has conducted the light division of boats; and I beg leave to bring him to your particular notice. He has mentioned to me, that he has derived great assistance from Lieutenants Keele and Kellett, of the royal navy[1].”
The light division was very actively and usefully employed during the operations against Donoobew, in Mar. 1825. On the 1st April, Lieutenant Smith assumed the direction of a breaching battery mounting four brass 12-pounders. After the capture of that place. Sir Archibald Campbell and Captain Alexander sent despatches to their respective superiors of which the following are extracts:–
“I now beg leave,” says the former, “to acknowledge my obligations to Captain Alexander, C.B., senior naval officer, and commanding the flotilla, for his hearty and cordial co-operation on all occasions since we have served together, and for his very great exertions on the present occasion, in bringing up stores and provisions. Since we have been before Donoobew, eleven of the enemy’s large class war-boats have been captured by our advanced boats, under his own immediate orders; making, with others, evacuated by their crews, thirty-eight first rate war-boats now in our possession; and I have every reason to think that only five of the large squadron the enemy had stationed at this place, have succeeded in escaping. A vast number of other boats, of an excellent description, have also fallen into our hands. By Brigadier-General Cotton, and all the officers embarked, the zeal and incessant labour of His Majesty’s navy are mentioned in terms of high admiration.”
“In my former despatch,” says Captain Alexander, “I gave you the names of all officers and young gentlemen commanding boats[2], and I again request you will be pleased to recommend them to the favorable attention of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, with the seamen and marines I have had the pleasure to command, their conduct having been such as to merit the highest encomiums – their privations, hardships, and fatigue, during upwards of six weeks, by day and night, in open boats, have been borne with cheerfulness, and every duty performed with alacrity.
“Of Captain Chads I can only say, he has fully supported his former character, and has my best thanks. I trust I may be allowed to name my first Lieutenant, Smith, an already distinguished officer. Mr. Watt, surgeon of the Arachne, a volunteer, has been of most essential service in attention to the sick and wounded.”
On the 7th April, “by the exertions of the boats under Lieutenant Smith, sent on by Captain Alexander to superintend the passage of the river,“ Sir Archibald’s advanced guard, consisting of two European regiments, was crossed over to Sarrawah, and by the 12th, the whole of the land column was on the left bank of the Irrawaddy. After the occupation of Prome, the light division, under Lieutenant James Wilkinson, of the Liffey, captured eight war-boats, pulling from fifty to sixty oars each, and another laden with guns, jingals, and spears. In Sept. 1825, Lieutenant Smith was employed as a negociator at Meady, in conjunction with Lieutenant-Colonel Tidy[3]. On the 2d Dec, he assisted at the capture of nearly three hundred boats, laden with arms, ammunition, grain, and military stores. On the 5th, he assisted in completing the discomfiture of the Burmese army; and on the 26th we again find him selected to act as a diplomatist[4]. About this period he was appointed to the Boadicea frigate. Commodore Sir James Brisbane; and on the 19th Jan. 1826, he commanded that ship’s launch at the capture of Melloone, on which occasion a very ample magazine of grain, seventy-six guns, ninety jingals, seventeen hundred muskets, two thousand spears, eighteen thousand round shot, a quantity of quilted and loose grape, one hundred thousand musket halls, more than twenty tons of gunpowder, an immense quantity of refined saltpetre and sulphur, upwards of a ton of un-wrought iron, eighteen war-boats, fifty-seven accommodation and store boats, nearly three hundred canoes, and about seventy horses, fell into the hands of the victors[5]. In less than three weeks afterwards, the operations of the British, by land and water, had released from the tyranny of the enemy above 25,000 persons, inhabitants of the lower provinces, who had been driven before the retreating forces, many of them ever since the commencement of the war. The light division, under Lieutenant Smith, subsequently liberated numerous canoes, and was very active in annoying the enemy’s out posts.
The subject of this sketch was made a commander on the 22d July, 1826; appointed to the Philomel sloop in April 1831; and paid off, on his return from Gibraltar, where he had been for some time stationed, Sept. 16th, 1823.
- ↑ See Naval Operations in Ava, p. 71, et seq.
- ↑ Lieutenants Smith, Keele, Kellett, and Bazely; acting Lieutenant Hall; Mr. Reed, master’s-mate; and Messrs. Duthy, Hand, Pickey, Lett, Coyde, and Murray, midshipmen.
- ↑ See Naval Operations, p. 90, et seq.
- ↑ See Id. p. 103.
- ↑ See Naval Operations, p. 109.