A Naval Biographical Dictionary/West, Joseph
WEST. (Commander, 1841. f-p., 19; h-p., 21.)
Joseph West entered the Navy 1 June, 1807, as Sec.-cl. Vol., on board the Téméraire 98, Capt. Sir Chas. Hamilton, lying at Portsmouth, and sailed, towards the close of the same year, in the Sapphire, Capt. Geo. Davies, for the East Indies, where he became Midshipman, in May, 1808, and July, 1811, of the Piémontaise 38, Capt. Chas. Foote, and Phoenix 36, Capt. Jas. Bawen. While attached to the Piémontaise, of which frigate he was for 14 months Master’s Mate, he was employed on shore in 1808 in co-operation with the army at Quilon on the coast of Malabar, and was twice wounded in cutting out gun-boats from Bantam, in the island of Java. In 1809 he was present in an attack upon a body of Malay pirates; and at the celebrated capture, in Aug. 1810, of the island of Banda Neira, he was one of those who escaladed the walls of the castle of Belgria. In 1811 he assisted at the capture of Palambang and Sambas. Returning to England in 1813 in the Bucephalus frigate, Capt. Barrington Reynolds, he joined, in the spring of 1814, the Newcastle 50, Capt. Lord Geo. Stuart, and Meteor bomb and Furieuse 36, Capts. Sam. Roberts and Wm. Mounsey – the two last on the coast of North America; where, after having accompanied an expedition to Penobscot Bay, he was made Lieutenant, 6 July, 1814, into the Acasta 40, Capt. Alex. Robt. Kerr. That ship however he never joined. He was employed next, between Oct. 1814 and Sept. 1815, in the Fantôme 18, Capt. Thos. Sykes (under whom he was wrecked on his passage from St. John’s, New Brunswick, to Halifax 24 Nov. 1814) Bulwark 74, Capt. Farmery Predam Epworth, Furieuse again, Capt. Mounsey, and Bann 20, Capt. Thos. Whinyates. His succeeding appointments were – 12 June, 1824, to the Pylades 18, Capt. Fras. Fead, in which vessel, after cruizing with an experimental squadron, he proceeded to the West Indies, whence he returned, we believe, in 1825 – 18 May, 1827, as First-Lieutenant, for upwards of three years, to the Tweed 20, Capt. Lord Henry John Spencer Churchill, at the Cape of Good Hope – 4 June, 1834, to the command, which he retained until the summer of 1836, of the African steamer, on the Home and Mediterranean stations – and, 14 May, 1838, to the command of the Volcano, another steamer. In the latter vessel, which he paid off in the early part of 1841, but recommissioned 23 Aug. following, he was employed on the North America and West India stations. He attained the rank of Commander 23 Nov. 1841; and as such he served in the Hecate steam-sloop of 240 horse-power, on the coast of Africa, from 11 June, 1845, until paid off in the spring of 1847.