Volumes 93 & 97, Sir William Henry Dillon, A Narrative of My Professional Adventures (1790-1839) Vol. I & II
ed. Michael A. Lewis (1953-56)

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Contents

Sir William Henry Dillon (1780-1857) was born in Birmingham, the illegitimate son of the distinguished writer and traveller John Talbot Dillon (1734-1806), a baron of the Holy Roman Empire.  The elder Dillon had briefly served in the Royal Navy, apparently obtaining his discharge in a fit of pique after being ejected, when a midshipman, from the Parade Coffee House in Portsmouth, a hostelry reserved for captains. William entered the navy in 1790, and saw action on the Glorious First of June in 1794, in Lord Bridport’s engagement off the Île de Groix in 1795, and at the capture of St. Lucia in 1796.  Commissioned lieutenant in 1797, he served off the coast of Wexford during the Irish rebellion. In 1803, when senior lieutenant of the Africaine, he carried a flag of truce from Lord Keith to the Dutch commodore Valterbach, but was arrested, handed over to the French, and held captive until 1807.  On his release, having in the meantime been promoted, he was given command of the decrepit old sloop Childers, with sixty-five men and carrying only fourteen 12-pounder carronades.  On 14 March 1808, off the Norwegian coast, she defeated, after a lengthy action, a Danish brig of twenty guns and a crew of 160.  A fortnight later Dillon, honoured with a valuable presentation sword by the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd’s, was posted captain: his delight and relief as he read over and over again the letter informing him that he had finally achieved that key step in any Georgian sea officer’s career provides memorable reading.  Subsequently, as a post-captain, he served at Walcheren, and in varied locations, including Newfoundland and the Far East. 

From 1835 (the year he was knighted as K.C.H.) until 1838 he commanded the 74-gun Russell in the Mediterranean.  He became equerry to the royal Duke of Sussex, and attained flag rank in 1846, dying in Monte Carlo in 1857 as a vice-admiral of the red.  His long, enjoyable, and informative memoirs, edited by Professor Michael A. Lewis, one of the doyens of naval historians, are arguably the best by any naval officer of the period, and for anyone seeking an intimate glimpse into the workings of the Georgian navy and the professional concerns and vexations of its officer corps they are essential reading.  The narrative, never dull, is enhanced by the editor’s erudite and, where appropriate, witty commentaries, by the sense we derive of the author’s personal foibles and by his numerous exasperated references to ‘Mrs. V’ (Matilda Voller), a middle-aged widow who ensnared Dillon into marriage when he was a young lieutenant recently returned from incarceration in France.  Other illuminative Georgian memoirs in the NRS series of publications are those of Admiral Sir Thomas Byam Martin (vols. 12, 19, 24), Captain John Harvey Boteler (vol. 82), and Commander James Anthony Gardner (vol. 31), Gardner’s being, like Dillon’s, especially vivid.

Contents

Volume 1
Sir William Henry Dillon, K.C.H.                                                     Frontispiece
Introduction                                                                                                        ix
I. Peace.  March 1790-January 1793    1                                                                                                        
II. The Revolutionary War: Opening Phase.  January 1793-April 1794                 61
III. The Revolutionary War: ‘The First of June.’  April 1794-December 1794    115
IV.  Ile de Groix and the Great Storms.  December 1764-March 1796                173
V.  The Lesser Antilles.  March 1796-March 1798                                               221
VI.  Ireland:  The Rebellion of 1798.  April 1798-April 1799                              317
VII. Jamaica Station.  April 1799-August 1802                                                    455
Index

Volume 2
The Brig Childers                                                                            Frontispiece
VIII.  Calamity.  September 1802-September 1807                                            1
IX.  Captivity.  September 1803-September 1807                                              33 
X.   Post Captain.  September 1807-April 1808                                                 67
XI.  Temporary Commands.  April 1808-March 1811                                      109
XII.   Troopship.  March 1811-December 1813                                                167
XIII.  North American Station.  December 1813-July 1815                              267
XIV.  Voyage to China.  July 1815-January 1817                                            345
XV.  Voyage to India.  January 1817-November 1819                                     421
XVI.  The Wilderness.  November 1819-July 1835                                          475
XVII.  Last Commission and After.  July 1835-September 1857                      493
Index                                                                                                              501

Further Reading

George Clement Boase (rev. Andrew Lambert), ‘Sir William Henry Dillon’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004).
Katherine Turner, ‘John Talbot Dillon’, op. cit. 

Extracts

Vol. 1, pp. 196-7 [June 1795]:  We now heard that a change in our naval uniform was ordered, and the epaulette was to be brought into use.  This change was attributed to Lord Hugh Seymour, who, although with his Flag flying in our Fleet, was a Lord of the Admiralty.  He had been present at the taking of Toulon where, when we landed our Marines, the officers of that Corps, wearing epaulettes, were constantly acknowledged by the French sentinels, who carried arms to them as they passed.  But they did not notice the English naval officers of rank who had not that military distinction in their dress.  This neglect on the part of the sentinels gave great offence to our Admirals, and to that circumstance was owing the introduction of the epaulette into the Navy, which has been in use ever since.

Vol. 2, p. 244 [re the French surrender of Malta in 1800]: The Commandant, with his garrison in a state of famine, surrendered on honourable terms to Gen. Pigot, scarcely a day’s provisions remaining in Valetta when taken possession of by us…. Its [the island’s] occupation by us is highly advantageous to the Maltese, by our commercial intercourse and the sums of money spent by our travellers, as well [as] by the Government in the improvement of the works.  The importance of Malta to us cannot be overrated, and while in the possession of Great Britain, it will prevent the Mediterranean from becoming a French Lake.