This letter appeared in the London Gazette of Jan. 3, 1804; and on the 31st of that month, the Committee of the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd’s resolved, “that a sword of 50l. value, with a suitable inscription, should be presented to Lieutenant Henderson;” whose “brave and handsome conduct” was also duly appreciated by Commodore Hood, under whom he served, as a Lieutenant of the Centaur 74, bearing the broad pendant of that officer, during the expedition against Surinam, in the month of April following[1]:
In the course of the operations carried on for the reduction of that colony, Lieutenant Henderson was attached to the division of troops commanded by Brigadier-General Green; and at the assault of fort Frederici he appears to have been severely wounded by the explosion of a magazine, to which the enemy had set fire in hopes of checking the progress of their assailants.
Immediately after the conquest of Dutch Guiana was completed. Commodore Hood promoted the subject of this memoir to the command of the Guachapin brig; and his commission, we believe, was confirmed at home on the 21st June in the same year. He subsequently commanded the Alligator troop ship and Pheasant sloop of war, both employed on the West-India station, from whence he returned to England in the summer of 1806. The following anecdote of Captain Henderson is not unworthy of mention:–
Whilst the Pheasant was once at anchor in Carlisle bay, Barbadoes, her commander and several other naval officers were invited to dine with a large party at the hospitable house of a gentleman named Maxwell, residing in Bridgetown. After dinner, an unexpected visitor arrived, a person of the name of Blair, well known in the West Indies at that period, being a notorious duellist, and dead shot. This man, taking his seat at table, immediately gave the news from Guadaloupe, from whence he had just come up in a neutral vessel: among other things, he told the company that there was a large ship privateer fitting out there, to carry 20 guns
