the officers embarked, the zeal and incessant labour of His Majesty’s navy are mentioned in terms of high admiration.”
“In my former despatch,” says Captain Alexander, “I gave you the names of all officers and young gentlemen commanding boats[1], and I again request you will be pleased to recommend them to the favorable attention of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, with the seamen and marines I have had the pleasure to command, their conduct having been such as to merit the highest encomiums – their privations, hardships, and fatigue, during upwards of six weeks, by day and night, in open boats, have been borne with cheerfulness, and every duty performed with alacrity.
“Of Captain Chads I can only say, he has fully supported his former character, and has my best thanks. I trust I may be allowed to name my first Lieutenant, Smith, an already distinguished officer. Mr. Watt, surgeon of the Arachne, a volunteer, has been of most essential service in attention to the sick and wounded.”
On the 7th April, “by the exertions of the boats under Lieutenant Smith, sent on by Captain Alexander to superintend the passage of the river,“ Sir Archibald’s advanced guard, consisting of two European regiments, was crossed over to Sarrawah, and by the 12th, the whole of the land column was on the left bank of the Irrawaddy. After the occupation of Prome, the light division, under Lieutenant James Wilkinson, of the Liffey, captured eight war-boats, pulling from fifty to sixty oars each, and another laden with guns, jingals, and spears. In Sept. 1825, Lieutenant Smith was employed as a negociator at Meady, in conjunction with Lieutenant-Colonel Tidy[2]. On the 2d Dec, he assisted at the capture of nearly three hundred boats, laden with arms, ammunition, grain, and military stores. On the 5th, he assisted in completing the discomfiture of the Burmese army; and on the 26th we again find him selected to act as a diplomatist[3]. About this period he was appointed to the Boadicea frigate. Commodore
- ↑ Lieutenants Smith, Keele, Kellett, and Bazely; acting Lieutenant Hall; Mr. Reed, master’s-mate; and Messrs. Duthy, Hand, Pickey, Lett, Coyde, and Murray, midshipmen.
- ↑ See Naval Operations, p. 90, et seq.
- ↑ See Id. p. 103.
