Willoughby distinguished himself throughout by his daring and the reckless exposure of himself; frequently, it was said, taking his meals sitting in a chair upon the ramparts or breastwork of the battery (James, iii. 295). Willoughby seems to have denied the chair, and to have maintained that in the circumstances the example was necessary. This was perhaps an afterthought, for during the whole of his service danger, whether from storm, the sea, or the enemy, seems by itself to have been sufficient lure; but the instances of this are far too numerous to be even named here. In February 1805 Duckworth hoisted his flag in the Acasta frigate and appointed Willoughby her first lieutenant, intending to promote him on his arrival in England. The circumstances of his quarrel with Captain (Sir James Athol) Wood [q. v.] and the court-martial arising out of them prevented this; and Willoughby was appointed to the Prince on 8 July 1805, but was not able to join her till 8 Nov., eighteen days after the battle of Trafalgar.
Willoughby was afterwards in the Formidable, and in 1807 was in the Royal George, Duckworth's flagship, on the occasion of his forcing the passage of the Dardanelles; on 14 Feb., when the Ajax was destroyed by fire [see Blackwood, Sir Henry], he, in the Royal George's cutter, was one of the first to go to her assistance, and succeeded in saving many lives, but at the greatest personal risk. In July 1807 he was discharged to the Otter sloop for a passage to Monte Video and the Cape of Good Hope, where he was promoted to the command of the Otter on 10 Jan. 1808, though the commission was not confirmed by the admiralty till 9 April. The Otter was then sent for a cruise off Mauritius and to Bombay under the orders of Captain Robert Corbet [q. v.] of the Néréide; and on her return to Cape Town in the following January, Willoughby was brought before a court-martial on charges of ‘cruelty and unofficer-like conduct’ preferred against him in a letter to the admiral, signed ‘The ship Otter's company, one and all.’ It appeared from the evidence that there had been a great deal of flogging and starting—promiscuous beating with a stick or rope's-end—and that it had been commonly accompanied by violent threats; that Willoughby had said that ‘it was as much pleasure to him to punish a man when he comes to the gangway as it was to go to his breakfast,’ and that ‘he would flog like hell and start like hell.’ The trial lasted over five days, 9–14 Feb., and in the end Willoughby was acquitted, but was recommended ‘to adopt more moderate language on future occasions’ (Courts Martial, vol. cxxv.). In view of the evidence, the acquittal appears strange, for the punishments had certainly been excessive and irregular; still more open to censure seems the fact that one of the captains sitting on this court was Corbet, who, on the days immediately preceding, had been tried for a similar offence, and had been similarly acquitted with a slight reprimand.
After refitting, the Otter was again sent off Mauritius, and on 14 Aug. Willoughby, in the sloop's boats, brought out a vessel strongly anchored under the batteries of the Black river. On 21 Sept. he commanded the seamen who were put on shore at St. Paul's with the troops, and had an important share in the happy success of the operation [see Rowley, Sir Josias]. For his exertions at this time the commander-in-chief at the Cape, his old patron Albemarle Bertie, promoted him to command the Néréide frigate; but his commission as post-captain was not confirmed till nearly a year later (5 Sept. 1810), and then for another piece of service—the landing with a party of a hundred men on the night of 30 April, destroying two French batteries at Jacotel, and utterly routing a strong body of militia, Willoughby himself leading the onslaught in full-dress uniform. A few weeks after this (15 June) he narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental bursting of a musket fired in exercise. As it was, his right lower jaw was shattered, and his neck so lacerated that the windpipe was laid bare. For nearly three weeks he lay between life and death, but on 7 July he took part in the capture of Bourbon, and, with his face and neck still bound up, superintended the landing of the troops.
In August 1810 he was with Captain (Sir Samuel) Pym [q. v.] at the seizure of the Isle de la Passe on the 13th, and was left there when Pym went round to Port Louis. On the 20th the French squadron came in sight—four large ships and a sloop; and though two of the former proved to be East Indiamen prizes, the other two were 40-gun frigates, which, by going round to Port Louis to join the French ships there, would have placed Pym in a position of very great danger. With equal good judgment and boldness Willoughby, by hoisting French flags and signals, decoyed the enemy into the passage; when they found out their mistake they were no longer able to turn, and were obliged to go into the Grand Port, after a sharp interchange of broadsides with the Néréide. At the very first Willoughby had sent off
