A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Watts, George Edward

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WATTS. (Captain, 1814. f-p., 16; h-p., 34.)

George Edward Watts, a native of Scotland, is only son of the late John Watts, Esq., an officer in the army, who fell while serving under the Duke of Kent at the storming of Fort Bourbon, Martinique, in 1794, by Miss Agnes Skene, a lady nearly related to the family of Skene, of Skene, co. Aberdeen, whose founder married a sister of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland, and received from that monarch the name by which his descendants are now known. Capt. Watts’ paternal grandfather, a Captain of infantry, who fought under the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Culloden, was himself the grandson of Capt. Jas. Watts, R.N. (1686), and first-cousin of the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts.

This officer entered the Navy, 2 Nov. 1797 (under the auspices of H.R.H. the Duke of Kent), as Fst.-cl.Vol., on board the Driver sloop, in which vessel and the Prevoyante frigate, both commanded by Capt. John Seater, he was for nearly three years employed, a great part of the time as Midshipman, on the Halifax and Home stations, where he served afterwards as Midshipman and Master’s Mate in the Assistance 50, Capt. Robt. Hall, Waakzamkeidt 24, commanded by the same officer, Leander 50, bearing the flag of Sir Andrew Mitchell, and Lily and Diligente sloops, Capts. Wm. Lyall and Wm. Lloyd. He was confirmed a Lieutenant, 1 May, 1804, into the Fly 18, Capt. Robt. O’Brien, on the Jamaica station; and was appointed next – 20 Aug. and 13 Oct. in the same year, to the Elephant 74 and Ardent 64, Capts. Geo. Dundas and Robt. Winthrop, in the West Indies and Channel – 4 April, 1805, to the Dauntless 18, Capts. Hugh Pigot and Chas. Jones, also in the Channel – 29 Nov. 1806, to the Centaur 74, as Flag-Lieutenant to Commodore Sir Sam. Hood at Portsmouth – and, 8 Dec. 1806, as Senior, to the Comus of 32 guns, Capts. Conway Shipley and Edm. Heywood. While cruizing in the latter ship among the Canary Islands he took command, in March, 1807, of her boats, and displayed much judgment and energy in capturing six merchant-vessels moored in the Puerto de Haz, Grand Canaria, and defended by the cross fire of three batteries. Having escorted the prizes to Gibraltar, the Comus returned to the same ground, experiencing on her way back a sharp encounter with a division of the Algeciras flotilla. On the night of 8 May Mr. Watts entered the port of Grand Canaria, and with the cutter alone boarded the San Pedro, a large felucca of 6 guns and at least 65 men, which had been for three days lying under the protection of a strong fort and two batteries. Although exposed to a severe fire from between 30 and 40 soldiers sent to assist in her defence, he had nearly cleared the deck before two other boats dispatched from the Comus arrived to his support. On the vessel being taken in tow, a hawser just under the water astern was manned in the fort, and she was dragged nearly under the muzzles of the guns before it could be cut. “This exploit was achieved,” says Capt. Shipley in a letter to Sir Sam. Hood, “with the loss of 1 man killed and 5 wounded. Mr. Watts has several wounds, but none of them dangerous; and I feel convinced his gallant conduct, with the exertions of every officer and man employed, will meet your approbation. Twenty-one of the enemy’s troops were made prisoners, 18 of whom are wounded; the rest, excepting a few who swam to the shore, were killed, as was her Captain and some of her crew.”^[1] Independently of the hawser, the San Pedro had been secured to the shore by three cables ahead and astern; and, the enemy being fully prepared, her resistance was desperate beyond description. Mr. Watts’ first reception was a bayonet in the face, which forced him overboard; and, when he at length succeeded in scaling the vessel’s side, he maintained for a considerable time a single-handed fight, during which he was often knocked down, had his jacket pierced in eight places with bayonets, and received five severe and eight lesser wounds, besides numberless contusions. As a reward for his valour and the injuries he sustained, he was presented by the Patriotic Society with a sword valued at 50 guineas and a donation of 100l. Under Capt. Heywood, Mr. Watts, after having escorted three General officers and their suites, together with a fleet of transports, to Elsineur, assisted at the capture, in Aug. 1807, immediately prior to the attack upon Copenhagen, of the Danish frigate Frederickscoarn, carrying 32 12 and 6 pounders, 6 12-pounder carronades, and 226 men, at the end of a close action of 45 minutes, attended with a loss to the enemy of 12 killed and 20 wounded, but to the Comus (whose force consisted of 24 long 9-pounders and 8 24-pounder carronades, with a complement of 145 men) of only 1 wounded. For his gallantry on this occasion Mr. Watts, who had headed the boarders,^[2] was promoted to the rank of Commander by a commission bearing date 17 Sept. 1807. Previously, however, to his return to England he contributed to the capture of several other vessels, and was more than once engaged with the enemy on the coast of Norway. His next appointments were, 26 Dec. 1808, in 1809, and 5 April, 1813, to the Ephira 10, Woodlark 12, and Jaseur 18, on the North Sea, Baltic, and North American stations. In the Ephira he was employed, in the spring of 1809, with a small squadron of gun-vessels under his orders, in the river Elbe. While there he made many captures, and afforded much annoyance to the enemy’s convoys passing from Hamburgh, Glückstadt, and Altona to Tonningen and Kiel. In July of the same year we find him assisting, under Capt. Wm. Goate of the Mosquito brig, at the expulsion of the French from Cuxhaven and Ritzbuttle. At the former place, having landed with the officer just named and a party of seamen, he aided in taking possession of and in ultimately destroying a battery mounting 6 24-pounders and garrisoned by about 80 men, who, as the British approached, retreated.^[3] Landing again a few days afterwards, with Lord Geo. Stuart, of L’Aimable 32, he went in pursuit of a strong body of the enemy’s troops, in number about 250, then occupying Gessendorf a town situated at a distance of 28 miles from the point of debarkation. On their road the seamen became exposed to a heavy fire of grape and round from a battery of 4 12-pounders, whose occupants, however, on perceiving the determined manner of the former, made off, as did the troops in the town. In narrating the particulars. Lord Geo. Stuart thus expresses himself:– “I beg leave particularly to mention Capt. Watts of the Ephira, who, in the most gallant and handsome manner, advanced intrepidly in front of the attacking party, amid the enemy’s galling fire, and rendered himself equally conspicuous afterwards by his unremitting exertion in the complete demolition of the battery, in the execution of which service, I am concerned to say, he received a wound in the leg.”^[4] Capt. Watts’ services in the Woodlark, during the four years that he was stationed in the Baltic, were arduous and energetic in the extreme. With a crew of only 76 men and boys, he had at one time not less than 13 Prize-Masters absent; and he himself, in addition to all calls, was at watch and watch for nearly four months. In May, 1810, he captured a Danish brig under the batteries of Fladstrand; and on 27 of the same month he pursued a cutter-privateer through a navigation of such intricacy that his pilots abandoned their charge. The vessel in question, the Swan of 6 24-pounders and 35 men, was destroyed, and another, a new ship, the Success, laden with wheat and linen, subsequently taken by the boats under the present Retired-Commander Thos. Crawford.^[5] When not cruizing Capt. Watts was often employed in escorting convoys through the Great Belt; and so great was his anxiety to ensure their safety that he had been known to keep under sail during the whole night, an operation which, repeated, caused him for successive weeks to be constantly on the alert, without changing the clothes he had on. In 1812 the Mars 74, Capt. Henry Raper, whom the Woodlark was leading in to the attack of a flotilla stationed beyond the entrance of the Malmo Channel, took the ground in a position that exposed her to the Danish gun-boats; whereupon Capt. Watts, although under every disadvantage, brought the latter to action in order to divert their attention from the 74, who, on at length floating, made the signal of recall. The loss on board the Woodlark in this affair extended to 13 killed and wounded. Capt. Watts’ appointment to the Jaseur, we may here observe, was the result of an application made in his favour to Lord Melville by Rear-Admiral Geo. Hope, to whom he had been warmly recommended by his constant patron, the Duke of Kent. In her he saw much service in the Chesapeake and on other parts of the coast of North America. While in the Chesapeake he was directed by Rear-Admiral Cockburn (whose approbation he had the fortune to elicit) to endeavour to discover a navigable passage through Tangier Strait, and to procure fresh provisions for the use of the squadron. He succeeded in establishing himself 15 miles higher than any square-rigged vessel had before reached, and harassed the enemy to the full extent of his power. In one instance he gave chase to a vessel in person, in his own boat, penetrated 12 or 14 miles up the river Wicomico, and not only destroyed her, but captured and burnt nine others. Such were the remonstrances produced among the American authorities by this performance, that the Baltimore flotilla, under Commodore Barney, was sent to essay either the capture or destruction of the Jaseur; but the Commodore was himself obliged to seek shelter in the Patuxent by the Dragon 74, Capt. Robt. Barrie. Among other operations, Capt. Watts assisted at the capture of the towns of Benedict and Marlborough, on the Patuxent; and at different times he took and annihilated upwards of 30 vessels, in addition to a letter-of-marque, the Grecian, cut out by his boats from under a battery. In Oct. 1814, having been advanced to Post-rank 7 June preceding, he returned to England. He has not been since able to procure employment.

During his career afloat Capt. Watts received 17 wounds, besides having his arm fractured. He obtained the Good Service Pension 23 July, 1848. He had hoped that his services might have been thought worthy the Companionship of the Bath. He married, first, 20 Oct. 1820, Jane, daughter of Geo. Waldie, Esq., of Hendersyde Park, Roxburghshire; and (that lady dying 6 July, 1826), secondly, 18 June, 1830, Elizabeth Foulis, daughter of John Robinson Foulis, Esq., of Buckton and Heslerton, co. York (only brother of the late Sir Wm. Foulis, Bart., of Ingleby Manor), by Decima Hester Beatrix, eldest daughter of Sir Christopher Sykes, Bart., of Sledmere, co. York. He has issue four sons and three daughters. Agents – Goode and Lawrence.

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1. Vide Gaz. 1807, pp. 778-9.
2. Vide Gaz. 1807, p. 1157.
3. Vide Gaz. 1809, p. 1126.
4. Vide Gaz. 1809, p. 1212.
5. On the night of 3 May, 1811, the Woodlark captured, after a smart chase over the Natter reefs, a very fine row-boat, 30 feet long, armed with two brass howitzers and small arms and commanded by a Lieutenant of the Danish Navy, with 20 men; one of the Danes was killed and one wounded. – Vide Gaz. 1811, p. 1128.