A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Mottley, Samuel
MOTTLEY. (Retired Commander, 1845.)
Samuel Mottley died in 1845. He was brother of the late Admiral Mottley.
This officer entered the Navy, in Feb. 1800, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Prince 98, Capt. Sam. Sutton, flag-ship in the Channel of Sir Chas. Cotton, whom he followed into the Prince George 98. Becoming Midshipman, in Feb. 1801, of the Caesar 80, bearing the flag of Sir Jas. Saumarez, he took part in the actions fought, 6 and 12 July following, oif Algeciras and in the Gut of Gibraltar. In the course of 1802 he successively joined the Leda frigate, Capt. Hardy, and Rambler sloop, Capt. Thos. Innes; and on 2 July, 1803, he was on board La Minerve, of 48 guns, Capt. Jahleel Brenton, when that ship took the ground under the batteries of Cherbourg, and was compelled, in spite of a desperate and sanguinary resistance, to strike her colours. Being restored to liberty in Oct. 1806, he was appointed (after a brief attachment, on the Home and West India stations, to the Royal William, Capt. Hon. Courtenay Boyle, Prince George 98, Capt. Geo. Losack, Northumberland 74, flagship of Hon. Sir Alex. Cochrane, and Heureux 24, Capt. John Ellis Watt) to the command, with the rank of Acting-Lieutenant, of the Alliance schooner, 5 March, 1807. In the ensuing Dec. he removed, with the rank last mentioned, to the Haughty gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander John Mitchell. He was confirmed a Lieutenant 20 May, 1808, and was afterwards appointed – 28 of the same month, to the Christian VII. 80, Capt. Sir Joseph Sydney Yorke, in the Channel – 12 July, 1810, to the Macedonian, of 48 guns and 254 men, Capts. Lord Wm. FitzRoy and John Surman Carden, off Lisbon – 26 Nov. 1813, to the Bulwark 74, Capt. David Milne, on the North American station – in Nov. 1814, for passage home, to the Loire 38, Capt. John Nash – and, 6 June, 1815, to the Albion 74, Capt. Philip Somerville. As Second-Lieutenant of the Macedonian, Mr. Mottley elicited the highest acknowledgments of Capt. Garden for his conduct, on 25 Oct. 1812, in a desperate action of 2 hours and 10 minutes, which rendered that frigate a shattered prize, after experiencing a loss of 36 men killed and 68 wounded, to the American ship United States, of 56 guns and 474 men, 12 of whom only appear to have been killed and wounded.[1] In the Bulwark, besides sharing in other operations, he commanded a boat, in a manner that obtained him much praise, at the destruction, up the Penobscot, of the American frigate Adams, 3 Sept. 1814[2] Quitting the Albion in Sept. 1815, Lieut. Mottley’s next appointments were – in the summer of 1815, and in July, 1823, and March, 1825, to the command of the Hardwicke, Bat, and Camelion Revenue-cruizers – 25 April, 1834, to the Ordinary at Portsmouth, where he remained, latterly as Senior of the Victory 104, Capt. Thos. Searle, until the spring of 1837 – and, 30 Dec. 1837, to the Coast Guard, in which service he continued nearly six years and a half. He accepted the rank of Commander on the Retired List 30 April, 1845, a short time only prior to his death.
Commander Mottley married, 3 Aug. 1819, Maria Dundas Beatson, of Campbell Town, by whom he has left issue. Agent – J. Hinxman.