Royal Naval Biography/Boss, John George
JOHN GEORGE BOSS, Esq.
[Commander.]
Was born at Beverley, co. York, in 1781; and educated by his aunt, Mrs. Frances Savage, of Honsea, in the same county, a most distinguished character in the methodist connexion, whose memoirs, together with her writings, are deposited in the archives of that society.
Mr. Boss commenced his naval career as an apprentice in the merchant service: but soon quitted it, and entered as midshipman on board the Excellent 74, Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, in 1796. Previous to the peace of Amiens, he was engaged in various cutting-out expeditions; and after the renewal of hostilities, we find him, for a short time, in the hands of the enemy. On recovering his liberty, he joined the Centaur 74, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Samuel Hood, then commander-in-chief at the Leeward Islands.
The next service in which Mr. Boss appears to have been employed, was as a volunteer at the storming of Fort Soloman, in the island of Martinique. He subsequently assisted in fortifying the Diamond Rock[1]; and was with Lieutenant George Edmund Byron Bettesworth, of the Centaur, when that officer surprised and brought off a party of engineers employed in constructing works against it; on which occasion the general commanding that corps was taken prisoner.
On the evening of the 3d Feb. 1804, four of the Centaur’s boats, containing sixty seamen and twelve marines, under the orders of Lieutenant Robert Carthew Reynolds, assisted by Lieutenant Bettesworth, Mr. Boss, and Mr. John Tracey, secretary, were detached to attempt the capture of the French national brig Curieux, mounting 16 long 6-pounders, with a complement of 105 men, lying at anchor close under Fort Edward, at the entrance of the Carénage, Fort Royal harbour, Martinique, victualled for three months, and all ready for a start to sea. The result of this enterprise is thus stated in James’s Naval History, 2d edit. Vol. III p. 354 et seq.:
“Although the suspicion that an attack might he made by a part of the blockading force had led to every commendable precaution to prevent surprise; such as loading the carriage-guns with grape, and the swivels (of which there were eight) and wall-pieces with musket-balls; spreading on the quarter-deck, and in the arm-chest, the muskets, sabres, pistols, tomahawks, and pikes; filling the cartouch-boxes; placing as sentries, one marine at each gangway-ladder, one at each bow, and two at the stern; tracing up the boarding-nettings; and directing a sharp look-out to be kept by every officer and man of the watch; yet was the Curieux, owing to the vigour of the onset, and the hour chosen for making the attack, unapprized of her enemy’s approach, until too late to offer a successful resistance.
“At about three-quarters past midnight, after a hard pull of twenty miles, and just as the moon was peeping from behind a cloud, the Centaur’s boats were hailed by the Curieux, and then fired into by the sentries, by two of the starboard guns, a swivel, and a wall-piece. The marines returned the fire with their muskets, and the boats pulled rapidly on. In the midst of a scuffle alongside, the barge pushed for the brig’s stern. Here hung a rope-ladder, to which two boats were fast. Lieutenant Reynolds, and a seaman named Richard Templeton, ascended by it to the taffrail, and, in defiance of the swivels and wall-pieces mounted at this end of the vessel, were quickly followed by the rest of the barge’s crew. In his way up the ladder. Lieutenant Reynolds, with admirable coolness, cut away one of the tracing-lines with his sword, whereby the corner of the netting fell, and thus enabled the other boats to board on the brig’s quarter.
“Since the first alarm had been given, all the Curieux’s crew, headed by their brave commander (Mons. Cordier), had been at their quarters; and a sanguinary combat now ensued, in which the French officers took a much more active part than a portion of their men. the enemy, however, were soon overpowered: some were killed or badly wounded; others thrown down the hatchway; and the remainder retreated to the forecastle. Here a line of pikes stood opposed to the British; but all was unavailable. Handspikes, and the butt-ends of muskets, became formidable weapons in the hands of the latter, and soon laid prostrate on the deck the captain and most of the officers near him. The majority of the surviving crew having by this time fled below, all further resistance presently ceased. The British were not long in cutting the cable of their prize, nor in unfurling her sails; and in a very few minutes, the Curieux, in the hands of her new masters, stood out of Fort Royal harbour. A smart fire was successively opened from Fort Edward, a battery on Point Negro, and another at Point Soloman; but the brig passed clear, and long before break of day, was at anchor near the Centaur.
“It was an additional cause of congratulation to the British, that their loss of men, considering the magnitude of the enterprise, was small, consisting of only nine wounded. Three of the number, it is true, were officers; – viz. Lieutenant Reynolds, the gallant leader of the party; his able second. Lieutenant Bettesworth; and Mr.Tracey. The first-named officer received no fewer than five severe, and, as they eventually proved, mortal wounds: one of the seamen, also, died of his wounds. The loss on the part of the French was very serious; – one midshipman and nine other persons killed, and thirty, including every commissioned officer, wounded, many of them severely, and some mortally. Monsieur Cordier had a singular escape: after having been knocked down and stunned, he was thrown overboard, but fell on the fluke of the anchor, whence he dropped into a boat which was alongside, full of water-casks. The only man in the boat immediately cut her adrift, and pulled for the shore; and Captain Cordier, on recovering his senses, was as much chagrined as surprised at the novelty of his situation.
“The Curieux had long been at sea, and was considered to be one of the best-manned, and best-disciplined brigs in the French navy. Some of her crew were undoubtedly panic-struck; but the time, and the suddenness of the attack, coupled with its resistless impetuosity, may serve in part for their excuse. The conduct of the British upon the occasion speaks for itself.”
The Curieux was immediately commissioned as a British sloop of war, and Mr. Boss, by whom she had been brought out of Fort Royal harbour, appointed her first lieutenant; his commission, however, was not confirmed by the Admiralty until Sept. 14th, 1805. Shortly after this promotion, he assisted at the capture of l’Elizabeth French schooner privateer; and in the course of the same year we find him often employed in cutting out vessels from under the enemy’s batteries.
On the 8th Feb. 1805, the Curieux, then commanded by Captain G. E. B. Bettesworth, captured, after a very severe action, la Madame Ernouf brig, of 16 long sixes and 120 men, of whom thirty were killed and forty wounded. “His Majesty’s brig” (says that officer) “had five killed and three wounded, besides myself: of the former, I have to regret the loss of Mr. Maddox, the purser, who, on account of Mr. Boss, first lieutenant, having been left behind on leave, from the hurry of our sailing, volunteered his services, and was killed, gallantly fighting at the head of the small-arm men. * * * * * * Lieutenant Boss having been left behind, deprived me of the services of an able and gallant officer.[2]”
On this occasion. Captain Bettesworth (who had received three wounds in capturing the Curieux) was again severely wounded by a musket-ball in the head; and previous to his recovery. Lieutenant Boss, acting as commander during his absence from duty, cut several schooners out of Cumana Gut, and a brig from St. Eustatia, under a destructive fire.
On the 7th July, 1805, the Curieux arrived at Plymouth, with despatches from Lord Nelson, then in pursuit of the combined fleets of France and Spain. After refitting, she was sent to the Lisbon station, where her boats, under the command of Lieutenant Boss, captured and destroyed the Spanish privateers Brilliano and Baltidore, the former of five guns and fifty-five men, Nov. 25th, 1805; the latter of six guns and forty-seven men, Feb. 5th, 1806.
This officer’s next appointment was to one of the line-of-battle ships stationed at Cadiz, during the siege of that important place by the French army under Marshal Victor:– whilst there he appears to have been alternately employed in the gun and mortar boats, and almost daily engaged with the enemy[3]. He obtained his present rank on the 26th Nov. 1811; and in the following year, a committee of merchants voted him a handsome present of plate, to bear the following inscription:– “Presented to John George Boss, Esq. commander of his Britannic Majesty’s sloop Rhodian, for his zeal and valor in the destruction of two French privateers, and in defending a convoy from St. Jago de Cuba to Heneaga.
“Pedro Blanco Carariego.”
“June 28th, 1812.”
About the same period, Commmander Boss entered Port Escondido, in the island of Cuba, and, with a trifling loss, captured and brought out a large piratical vessel, pierced for fourteen guns, together with three of her prizes. He subsequently captured upwards of twenty American merchantmen.
In 1813, the Rhodian, with 500,000 dollars on board, was totally wrecked near Port Royal, Jamaica; but, although the sea was so violent that the rafts were frequently torn away from her sides, every officer, man, and boy, the whole of her rigging and stores, and all the specie, except about forty dollars, were saved. For his extraordinary exertions on this occasion, the merchants presented Commander Boss (independent of the usual freight) with two pieces of plate, weighing 400 ounces.
The subject of this sketch married Charlotte, third daughter of the late Sir James Pennyman, Bart., of Ormesby, and niece to the first Earl Grey: their daughter, an only child, died at the age of five years.
addendum.
JOHN GEORGE BOSS, Esq.
(See Vol IV. Part I. p. 32.)
[Captain of 1833.]
This officer was elected M.P. for Northallerton immediately after the passing of Earl Grey’s Reform Bill; and promoted to the rank of captain on the 14th Nov. 1833. He married, 2dly, Elizabeth, daughter of the late T. Wylie, Esq.