This officer was made a Lieutenant, May 7, 1805; a Commander, Sept. 25, 1806; and a Post-Captain, Dec. 21, 1807; from which latter period, until the conclusion of the war, he was very actively employed in the Sir Francis Drake, and Belle Poule frigates, on the East-India and Channel stations. The following is an extract from Brenton’s Naval History, Vol. IV. p. 491:
“In August 1810, Captain George Harris, of the Sir Francis Drake, captured off Java a Batavian ship of 8 guns, a schooner of 6 guns, a privateer, two gun-boats, with 4 guns each; and, in addition to these, between the 9th of August and the 8th of September, seven Batavian gun-boats, five piratical proas, and thirty-five Dutch trading vessels.”
Towards the close of the same year, Captain Harris was stationed in the Straits of Sunda, under the orders of Commodore Byng, (now Viscount Torrington), for the purpose of affording protection to the outward bound China fleet. Whilst thus employed, he fell in with eight Malay proas, and sent a party to examine them, it being his intention to destroy all armed vessels of that description, but to let those engaged only in peaceable commerce pass unmolested. The Malays made not the least opposition or even objection to the visit, but on the contrary invited four seamen, who had boarded one of the proas, to go down into the cabin, where they instantly massacred them, cut them in pieces, and hung their bleeding remains among the rigging. This act of savage ferocity was overtaken with the most speedy, condign, and complete punishment; for Captain Harris, under the emotions excited by so treacherous and horrid a murder, stood nearer to the shore, and fired on the pirates till not a vestige of them remained visible; the whole of those barbarous wretches, about 400 in number, were either killed or wounded. During the same cruise, the boats of the Belliqueux and Sir Francis Drake destroyed a French ketch and two gun-vessels, under a heavy fire from the batteries of Bantam, with the loss of only one man belonging to the frigate. This service was conducted in a most judicious and highly spirited manner by Captain Byng’s first Lieutenant, the late Captain Joseph Prior, who died at St. Hillier’s, Jersey, Sept. 13, 1818; and that officer was ably
