Owing to the movements of the Blazer, then actively employed in the rivers Elbe and Weser, Lieutenant Woollnough could not join her until after the capture of the enemy’s forts at Cuxhaven, Dec. 1st, 1813.[1] The subsequent operations against Gluckstadt, in all of which he bore an ample share, are officially detailed under the head of Captain (now Sir John) Marshall.[2]
After the fall of the latter place, the Blazer returned to Cuxhaven, where she remained in charge of the flotilla and French prisoners, until the breaking up of the ice, in Mar. 1814. The prisoners, about 300 in number, including several ladies, were placed under the directions of Lieutenant Woollnough, in the “chateau,” with every regard to their comfort.
During the severe frost of 1814, this officer, who had also charge of the stores on shore, imposed upon himself the voluntary duty of patrolling the towns of Cuxhaven and Ritzbuttle twice or thrice every night, thereby preventing many depredations which the foreign troops, sent by Count Walmoden to assist in guarding the prisoners, would otherwise have committed.
In March, General the Count de Bennigsen having invested Hamburgh, then occupied by a French army under Marshal Davoust, he applied to Commander Marshall, of the Shamrock sloop, for the assistance of the British flotilla. The gun-boats at Cuxhaven were consequently equipped with all possible speed, and moved up in company with the Shamrock and Blazer, the former sloop having wintered at Gluckstadt. Their crews consisted of British and Danish seamen, some Hanoverian peasantry, and 300 Russian soldiers. The only officers to command this motley group were Commanders Marshall and Banks, Lieutenants Woollnough and Edgecombe, two second masters, and two midshipmen; those who had been employed in them during the sieges of Cuxhaven and Gluckstadt having gone home with the Heligoland squadron.
