RICHARD WILLIAMS (b), Esq.
[Commander.]
Eldest son of the late Lieutenant Thomas Williams, R.N., an old and meritorious officer, who lost his right leg, and was otherwise wounded, while serving on board the Chatham 50, Captain (afterwards Sir Andrew Snape) Douglas, in action with the French frigate Magicienne, near Boston, North America, Sept. 2d, 1781[1].
The subject of this memoir was born at St. Columb, co.
- ↑ Lieutenant Thomas Williams (a descendant of the ancient and respectable family of that name, in Carnarvonshire, North Wales) was very actively employed during the greater part of the American revolutionary war. He served under Captain A. S. Douglas in the Roebuck 44, and followed him from that ship into the Chatham. The services in which he participated are thus briefly alluded to by his gallant commander:
“On the 15th May 1780, my uncle. Sir Andrew S. Hamond, being ordered to England with despatches, I was directed to take the command of the Roebuck during his absence. Through the kindness of my uncle, a confirmation was sent to me from the Admiralty, as captain of the Roebuck, in which ship I remained until July 1781; having during that time been very actively employed, and having taken two rebel frigates – viz. the Confederacy 36, and Protector 28, besides several privateers.
“In July 1781, the Roebuck being ordered home, I was appointed captain of the Chatham; in the command of which ship I continued during the war, upon the coast of North America, where I captured or destroyed, during the last twenty months, fifty sail of merchant vessels, one French frigate of 32 guns and 280 men, and several stout American privateers. The frigate engaged the Chatham half-an-hour, although close alongside, and had eighty-six men killed and wounded: we had only two men slain and four wounded.”
Lieutenant Thomas Williams married Miss Bond, of a highly respectable family in Cornwall; and at the time of his demise was one of the officers of the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. His uncle, the late Captain Richard Williams, was a shipmate of the illustrious Nelson, who, many years afterwards, paid him a very flattering compliment. On his entering the waiting room at the Admiralty, in which a number of distinguished officers attending the First Lord’s levee were assembled, the hero shook him heartily by the hand, and said, “Gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you Captain Williams, an officer to whom I owe all I have gained in the service; for he first made me a seaman.”
