Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/452

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addenda to flag-officers.
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late Admiral Sir Richard King, Bart., and sister to the recently deceased commander-in-chief at Sheerness. One of his sons, Richard Freeman Rowley, is a captain in the navy[1]; his youngest daughter is married to the Earl of Kinnoul.



SIR ROBERT WALLER OTWAY, Bart K.C.B.
Vice-Admiral of the White, and one of the Grooms of His Majesty’s Bedchamber in Ordinary.
(Vol. I. Part II. p. 691.)


The property acquired by one of this officer’s ancestors, in Ireland, during the civil wars, is known by the name of Castle Otway. His father was Cooke Otway, Esq. an officer of dragoons; and his mother, a daughter of Sir Robert Waller, Bart, of Lisbrian, one of the commissioners of the Irish revenue, and M.P. for Dundalk (who died in Aug. 1780), was niece to Robert, first Viscount Jocelyn, a lawyer of great eminence, who filled the offices of solicitor and attorney-general in the reigns of George I. and II., and was nominated Lord High Chancellor of Ireland on the 7th Sept. 1739.

During the action between the Thorn and le Courier National, May 25th, 1795[2], a shot from the enemy broke Captain Otway’s sword in two, whilst he was holding it across his legs, without doing him any injury.

Captain Otway’s services during the Carib war in the island of St. Vincent[3], having attracted the attention of Sir John Laforey, who had succeeded Vice-Admiral Caldwell in the chief command on the Leeward Islands station, he promoted him to post rank in la Matilde 24, but in consequence of a change at the Admiralty, and his commission as commander not having been confirmed, he was ordered by the new Board to resume his former situation as lieutenant of the Majestic. However, upon a representation of the circumstance by Sir John Laforey, Earl Spencer imme-