A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Cawley, John (a)
CAWLEY. (Commander, 1825. f-p., 22; h-p., 31.)
John Cawley died 30 April, 1846, in his 77th year. He was son of the late Thos. Cawley, Esq., merchant, of Exmouth, co. Devon.
This officer entered the Navy, in Sept. 1793, as A.B., on board the Vanguard 74, Capt. Hon. Edwin Henry Stanhope, lying in the Downs; removed, as Midshipman, in the following month, to the Prince 98, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Geo. Bowyer; and, on subsequently accompanying the latter officer into the Barfleur 98, was present in Earl Howe’s actions of 29 May and 1 June, 1794, on which latter occasion he was slightly wounded. From July, 1794, to May, 1798, he was next employed, as Master’s-Mate, on a voyage of discovery to the Pacific, under Capt. Wm. Robt. Broughton, of the Providence 16, and, when on shore at the Sandwich Islands, narrowly escaped being murdered by the natives, the rest of his party havuig been all destroyed. After a servitude of two years on board the Suffolk 74, bearing the flag of Admiral Rainier in the East Indies, Mr. Cawley was confirmed, 16 Aug. 1800, to a Lieutenancy in the Daedalus 32, Capt. Henry Lidgbird Ball. While in the subsequent command of a gun-boat at the blockade of Batavia, he was principally instrumental to the destruction of the dockyard, arsenal, and public works, as well as of 6 armed and 10 merchant vessels, at that place; after which he aided, in the Straits of Banca, in taking one and sinking five of a flotilla of 60 piratical proas, at the termination of an action, in which, by the explosion of the powder-magazine, his sight was seriously injured. His next appointments’ were – 31 Jan. 1804, to the San Josef 110, as Flag-Lieutenant to Sir Chas. Cotton, in the Channel; and, 6 Sept. 1805, to the Courageux 74, Capt. Jas. Bissett, under whom he beheld the capture, 13 March, 1806, of the French ship Marengo of 80 guns, bearing the flag of Admiral Linois, and 40-gun frigate Belle Poule. He afterwards, as First Lieutenant, joined – in Feb. 1808, the Talbot sloop, Capt. Hon. Alex. Jones, off the coast of Portugal – 30 June, 1809, the Inconstant 36, Capt. Edw. Stirling Dickson, at the Cape of Good Hope – in Feb. and Dec. 1813, the Magicienne and Pomone frigates, in which, under Capts. Hon. Wm. Gordon and Philip Carteret, he assisted at the capture of St. Sebastian – and, 25 July, 1814, the Valiant 74, on the South American station, where, during the absence of the Captain, Zachary Mudge, he suppressed a dangerous mutiny of the crew. We should have mentioned that Lieut. Cawley, when in the Talbot and Inconstant, won considerable credit by the able manner in which he rescued those ships from destruction when they had taken the ground on a reef of rocks, the one near Lisbon, the other in Saldanha Bay. The Valiant having been paid off in Aug. 1815, he remained unemployed until appointed, 20 Nov. 1821, to command the Grecian cutter, of 10 guns, on the West India station. In March, 1823, we find him destroying a noted piratical schooner, mounting 8 heavy guns, together with 3 gun-boats, carrying in the whole 120 men, of whom 50 were killed; after which he performed an important service in heaving H.M. sloop Scout from off a reef of rocks on which she had struck; and for his conduct, on 5 Nov. following, in personally saving, with the boats of the Grecian, in spite of a Tremendous surf, 21 British subjects, who had been wrecked on a desert rock in the Gulf of Mexico, received the thanks of the Royal Humane Society. He was promoted to the rank of Commander on paying off the Grecian, 11 May, 1825; and, on 18 July, 1837, was admitted to the out-pension of Greenwich Hospital.
Commander Cawley, in 1818, constructed a lifeboat, the great value of which was fully attested by Sir John Ross in his first visit to the Arctic regions. He also suggested to the Admiralty a plan for watering the town of Port Royal, Jamaica, the dockyard, and shipping, at one-third of the present annual expense; and to information afforded by him is the whale-fishery indebted for its extension from the Equator north to Japan. Another proposal, submitted by him to the Board, was for instantaneously acquainting the man at the wheel or officer of the watch with the sudden appearance of water in any part of the ship. He married, first, in 1803, Miss Ann Blackmore, by whom, who died in 1832, he had six sons and five daughters; and, secondly, Elizabeth Bragg, by whom he has left a son and daughter – making, with the former, 13 children, all living. His eldest son, John, is a Lieutenant R.N.; four other sons are in the Hon.E.I.C.’s service; and a fifth was lately employed in China as Master’s-Assistant of the Agincourt 72.