A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Lawrence, Thomas
LAWRENCE. (Lieut., 1813. f-p., 10; h-p., 31.)
Thomas Lawrence entered the Navy, 29 Jan. 1806, on board the Centaur 74, bearing the broad pendant of Sir Sam. Hood. While in that ship he assisted, in company with the Mars and Monarch 74’s, at the capture, 25 Sept. 1806, of four heavy French frigates from Rochefort, after an action in which Sir Sam. Hood lost his arm. He also attended, in Aug. and Sept. 1807, the expedition to Copenhagen; beheld, in Dec. of the same year, the surrender of Madeira – aided, in conjunction with the Implacable 74, at the taking, 26 Aug. 1808, in sight of the whole Russian fleet near Rogerswick, of the 74-gun ship Sewolod, at the end of a close and furious couflict, in which the Centaur lost 3 killed and 27 wounded, and the enemy 180 killed and wounded – and, in Aug. 1809, was engaged, under Capt. Wm. Henry Webley, in the attack upon Walcheren, where he had charge of a gun-boat. Between Nov. 1810 and Aug. 1812 Mr. Lawrence officiated as Midshipman, in tho Mediterranean, of the Hibernia 120, flag-ship of Sir S. Hood and Sir Rich. Goodwin Keats. He then came home in the Invincible 74, Capt. Watson; and on 29 Dec. in the same year, 1812, being then on his passage to the East Indies as a Supernumerary (for the purpose of there joining Sir Sam. Hood) of the Java of 46 guns and 377 men, he had the misfortune to be captured by the American ship Constitution, of 55 guns and 480 men, after a desperate struggle and a loss to the Java of 22 killed and 102 (including her Captain, Henry Lambert, mortally) wounded. Mr. Lawrence, whose commission bears date 29 Dec. 1813, ultimately reached India in the Acorn 20, Capt. Geo. Henderson, in the early part of 1814. He remained on that station with Sir S. Hood in the Minden 74, and with Capts. Robt. O’Brien and John Harper in the Doris 36, until 1816; since which period he has been on half-pay.