St. John; and completed his time as midshipman under Captain John Elphinstone, in the Magnificent 74, on the West India station. The latter ship sustained a loss of eight men killed and eleven wounded, in the action between Vice-Admiral Byron and Count D’Estaing, off Grenada, July 6th, 1779; and had six slain and thirty-three wounded, in the skirmishes between Sir George B. Rodney and Count De Guichen, off Martinique, April 17th and May 19th, 1780.
In August following, Mr. Williams was appointed acting third lieutenant of the Bristol 50, Captain Toby Caulfield, which ship was soon afterwards totally dismasted, in the dreadful hurricane of which mention has been made at p. 68 of Vol. I. Part I. His first commission bears date Feb. 5th, 1781, from which period until the cessation of hostilities, in 1783, he successively served under Captains John Moutray, Sir John Hamilton, S.Cox, and the Hon. Peregrine Bertie; in the Ramillies and Hector third-rates, Bustler sloop, and Fortitude 74. During the Spanish armament, in 1790, he was appointed second lieutenant of the Andromeda 32, Captain John Salisbury; and on that ship being paid off, towards the end of 1793, we find him becoming first of the Belliqueux 64, Captain James Brine. In June 1794, he assisted at the capture of Port-au-Prince, in the island of St. Domingo, on which occasion nearly fourteen thousand tons of shipping, together with an immense quantity of colonial produce, fell into the hands of the British[1]. From May 1 796 until May 1800, he was senior lieutenant of the Glatton 56, Captain (now Sir Henry) Trollope, whom he most ably and gallantly supported in the celebrated action between that ship and a powerful French squadron, off Dunkirk, July 15th in the former year; also at the commencement of the general mutiny in 1797. For his highly meritorious conduct on the latter occasion, he received the especial thanks of the merchants and ship-owners of London, and was presented by their managing committee with a sword value one hundred guineas: his promotion to the rank of commander, however, did not take place before May 5th,
