WILLIAM KING, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1807.]
Commenced his naval career at a very early age, under the patronage of the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. When only sixteen years of age, we find him acting as Lieutenant of the Defence 74, commanded by Captain Thomas Newnham, under whom he bore a part in the action between Sir Edward Hughes and Mon. de Suffrein, off Cuddalore, June 20, 1783[1]. The Defence, on that occasion, had 7 killed and 38 wounded.
On his return to England, Mr. King quitted the service, and continued at home for a considerable period, in consequence of which he did not obtain a commission until 1790. In 1794, he again sailed for the East Indies, as first Lieutenant to Commodore Rainier. Returning from India, as an invalid; in one of the Hon. Company’s ships, he was captured by an enemy’s cruiser, the commander of which accepted his parole, and furnished him with the means of reaching Scilly, from whence he was conveyed to the Cornish shore in one of H.M. schooners, under the orders of Captain Byng, now Viscount Torrington. During the remainder of the French revolutionary war, he served as first Lieutenant to Captain (now Sir Philip) Durham.
We next find Mr. King commanding the Cuvarra merchant ship; and at the renewal of hostilities he was appointed to a gun-brig, which vessel he gave up in order to become Sir Home Popham’s first Lieutenant, in the Diadem 64. By that officer he was successively appointed Commander of l’Espoir brig, and Captain of the Diadem; but these and other unauthorised acts of the Commodore during and subsequent to the expedition against the Cape of Good Hope, in 1805 and 1806, were highly disapproved of by the Admiralty, and consequently never confirmed.
The subject of this sketch commanded l’Espoir at the reduction of the Cape, and afterwards proceeded in the Diadem to the Rio de la Plata. His services there are thus noticed
