A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Forbes, Alexander William
FORBES. (Lieutenant, 1815. f-p., 8; h-p., 32.)
Alexander William Forbes was born 21 May, 1793.
This officer entered the Navy, 2 Sept. 1807, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Impérieuse, of 44 guns, Capts. Lord Cochrane, Thos. Garth, and Hon. Henry Duncan; under the first of whom he took part in a variety of active operations on the coasts of France and Spain, destroyed numerous semaphore stations and batteries, co-operated in the reduction of the castle of Mongat and in the celebrated defence of Fort Trinidad, and warmly assisted at the destruction of the French shipping in Aix Roads. After attending the expedition to Flushing he returned to the Mediterranean, and there joined, in Jan. 1811, the Kent 74, Capt. Thos. Rogers; from which ship he appears to have been transferred, in Jan. 1813, to the Armide 38, Capt. Sir Edw. Thos. Troubridge, on the North American station. Independently of much detached service in the Chesapeake, Mr. Forbes joined in the attack upon New Orleans, and throughout the whole of the proceedings connected with that disastrous enterprise was incessantly employed in command of a boat on the Mississippi. On one occasion, when in the Armide’s launch, he boarded two American gun-boats. Being promoted, while in the Tonnant 80, flag-ship of Sir Alex. Cochrane, to the rank of Lieutenant, 4 March, 1815, he returned to England in the following Sept. on board the Saracen 18, Capt. Alex. Dixie. He has since been on half-pay. From May, 1818, to Nov. 1821, and again from May, 1824, to Jan. 1826, Mr. Forbes acted as Collector of the Customs at Demerara. He married, 12 Jan. 1824, and has issue.