to excite in him a hope, that in the distribution of honors, forming as it were a scale by which professional merit would necessarily be measured in the public esteem, a higher rank might have been allotted to him than that of a Companion. We do not believe that there is an officer in either profession who has ever exhibited greater “valour, perseverance, and devotion:” the foregoing recital of his services will prove that he “nobly earned” the latter “mark of distinction” on ten several occasions, while commanding the Otter and Nereide: the loss of an eye in battle, after he obtained the command of a frigate, was in itself sufficient to constitute a fair claim to the higher honor of K.C.B. – added to this, he received two other nearly mortal wounds when serving as a Post-Captain; and the College of Surgeons, as we have before observed, officially reported that, in addition to the loss of his eye, he had sustained injuries more than equal to that of a limb. We, therefore, cannot but consider, that in two points, wherein others were deemed entitled to that superior rank, he was unfairly excluded. Altogether, Captain Willoughby has received five nearly mortal wounds, besides others more trifling.
It is no less worthy of remark, that although Captains Pym, Lambert, and Curtis, were all appointed to frigates soon after their return from captivity at the Isle of France, Captain Willoughby did not succeed in getting another command until Sept. 1818, when he received a commission for the Tribune 42; in which ship he served for some time on the coast of Irelaild, and afterwards conveyed Rear-Admiral Fahie to the Leeward Islands station. This, his last appointment, he held till July 15, 1823.
It affords us much gratification to add, that one of the first acts of H.R.H. the Lord High Admiral, was to sooth the wounded feelings of Captain Willoughby, who had endured, for twelve years, that which to an honorable mind is nearly analogous to disgrace. Estimating the gallant captain’s services by their own circumstances, rather than by the measure of honorary reward which had been allotted to them in 1815, H. R. Highness was graciously pleased to obtain him ihc honor of knighthood, June 30, 1827. More than this the
