A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Wright, William Elliot
WRIGHT. (Commander, 1817. f-p., 18; h-p., 31.)
William Elliot Wright entered the Navy, 26 July, 1798, as A.B., on board La Sybille of 48 guns and 371 men, Capt. Edw. Cooke; under whom we find him, on the night of 28 Feb. 1799, contributing to the capture, at the mouth of the Bengal river, of the French frigate La Forte of 52 guns and 370 men, after a dreadful action of two hours and a half, in which the enemy had 65 of their number, including the Captain, killed, and the British 5 killed and 17 (among whom was Capt. Cooke mortally) wounded. He removed, in Sept. 1799, as Midshipman (a rating he had before attained), tq the Suffolk 74, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier, and continued (with the exception of an interval of a few months occasioned by the peace of Amiens) to serve in the East indies, until Sept. 1809, in the Vulcan bomb, Capt. Peter Heywood, Daedalus frigate, Capt. Wm. Waller, Arrogant 74, Capts. John Butt and Lord Geo. Stuart, Trident 64, flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Rainier, Caroline 36, Capt. Peter Rainier, Dasher sloop, Capt. Wm. Augustus Montagu, Caroline again, Capt. Henry Hart, and Belliqueux 64, Capt. Hon. Geo. Byng. He was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Dasher and the Caroline 4 Aug. 1805 and 18 May, 1807; and on 11 Dec. in the latter year (the date of his first commission) he assisted, while yet in the Caroline, at the destruction, at Griessee, in the island of Java, of the dockyard, stores, and of all the men-of-war remaining to Holland in India. On leaving the Belliqueux he returned to England in the Rattlesnake 18, Capt. Jas. John Gordon Bremer. He was employed afterwards with the late Sir Pulteney Malcolm in the Donegal and Royal Oak 74’s, and with Capts. Sam. Pym and Sir Michael Seymour in the Hannibal 74, on the coast of France; and a second time with Sir P. Malcolm in the Royal Oak, and, as Flag-Lieutenant, in the Tartarus 20 and Newcastle 60, on the coast of North America, in the Scheldt, and at St. Helena. In the Donegal he was present, 15 Nov. 1810, in an attack made on two French frigates, the Amazone and Eliza as they lay aground under the protection of several strong batteries in the neighbourhood of Cherbourg; and in the Royal Oak he accompanied the expedition against New Orleans. While at St. Helena in the Newcastle he was nominated, 20 Sept. 1816, Acting-Commander of the Griffon sloop; which vessel he paid off 12 Sept. 1818. Since that period he has not been afloat. His commission as Commander bears date 20 Aug. 1817. Agents – Messrs. Stilwell.