John Williamson (c1746-98)
Damned for failing to rescue Captain Cook from his attackers in 1779, Williamson was reputedly a most unpleasant individual who was widely detested by his peers. Nevertheless, for almost twenty years he continued to be promoted and given commands until he was ultimately court-martialled for failure in battle
Williamson, who was apparently of Irish extraction, joined the navy in 1759 during the Seven Years War aboard the Dorsetshire 70, Captain Peter Denis, and was present at the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November. In 1760 he transferred with Dennis to the newly commissioned Bellona 74 in the Channel Fleet, remaining with her for nearly three years as the command passed to Captains Robert Faulknor and Charles Ellys.
Following the end of the Seven Years War he served briefly aboard the Siren 20, Captain William Paston (paid off at the end of 1763), and then the Deptford 50 with the same officer, which paid off in the late spring of 1764. For the next two years he was aboard the Tamar 16, Captain Patrick Mouat, accompanying Captain John Byron on the frigate Dolphin during his voyage around the world. After some years on the beach, he was commissioned lieutenant on 8 March 1774, and joined the Ramillies 74, Commodore Sir Edward Vernon, the commander-in-chief at the Nore.
Captain Williamson earned infamy when he failed to assist Captain James Cook when the great explorer was attacked and killed in Hawaii in 1779.
On 23 February 1776, Williamson was appointed as a junior lieutenant aboard the Resolution, Captain James Cook’s command for his third voyage of exploration. The Resolution and its consort the Discovery left England in July and made their way to the South Pacific eastwards across the Great Southern Ocean. Williamson seems to have disagreed with Cook and been disliked by most of the other officers on the expedition, reputedly even fighting a duel with Marine officer Molesworth Philips. During the fatal events of 14 February 1779 at Keleakakua Bay on the island of Hawaii, Williamson commanded a boatload of sailors lying some yards offshore to support the captain and the small group of marines on the beach. When Cook was attacked by a large body of Hawaiians, rather than moving in to save the captain, he moved farther offshore, and after Cook’s brutal death, he failed to attempt the recovery of his body. Williamson claimed then and later that he had misunderstood Cook’s signal for help, assuming that he was gesturing for the launch to stand off. His fellow officers did not believe him, accusing him of cowardice, and the midshipmen aboard the Resolution would not speak to him for the remainder of the voyage.
It was his good fortune that the officer who succeeded Cook in command of the expedition, Commander Charles Clerke, died before reaching England, as Clerke had intended to see Williamson court-martialled for his conduct on the day of Cook’s death. In fact, Williamson benefited from a re-organisation following Clerke’s death, when he took over the duties of first lieutenant of the Discovery. On his return to England, he was promoted commander of the Resolution with effect from 3 October 1780, the day on which the two ships reached home waters, and he then commanded the ship as it refitted as an armed transport. After the voyage he gave ‘many curiosities’ from the voyage to the Marine Society, a charitable group devoted to the education of future sailors.
By now the American Revolutionary War had been running for some years, and on 2 November 1781 Williamson was appointed to the bomb vessel Vesuvius 8, kissing the hand of the King at St. James Palace before taking up the position. After a visit to Sheerness, during January 1782 his vessel was in the Downs, and by the spring she was with the Channel Fleet at Spithead.
In April 1782 Williamson was appointed to recommission the aged Belleisle 64, which was fitting at Chatham for service in the Channel, and he was posted captain on 11 June. During July the Belleisle was ordered to join the Channel Fleet under Lord Howe, but the ship ran aground off Dover and then sprung two of her masts in the Irish Sea; Williamson was superseded before his ship ever reached the fleet. In late August he recommissioned the new frigate Crocodile 24, which fitted out for sea at Portsmouth before sailing with a convoy to Newfoundland on 9 October; she was back at Spithead by January 1783.
Retaining the Crocodile, he sailed from St. Helens for the East Indies on 12 April 1783 with dispatches for the commander-in-chief announcing the end of the American Revolutionary War. The vessel also carried Sir William Jones, a notable scholar who had been appointed a judge in Bengal, along with his new wife Anna Maria. The frigate reached Madras on 31 August before sailing for Bengal and then to Bombay, where she arrived in late December. On 14 January 1784 the Crocodile left Bombay for St Helena and England, but she was wrecked off Start Point, Devon, on 9 May. Fortunately, the crew were able to reach shore in the ship’s boats and those of two other vessels, and they were landed at Plymouth to await further orders. As was customary Williamson was court-martialled for losing his ship. The evidence showed that the Crocodile had approached the English coast at night in dense fog without taking the obvious precaution of sounding to warn of shallow water. Surprisingly the captain was found not guilty of being responsible for the ship’s loss, and instead just issued a mild reprimand.
Williamson remained unemployed for the next twelve years, during which time it was reported in November 1788 that he was to have fought a duel near Battersea Bridge with a Mr. Macnamara, which gentleman had been wounded in another duel days previously over a dispute in the Cocoa-Tree coffee-house. Peace officers intervened before the second duel could take place, and the parties were bound over to keep the peace at Bow Street. This conflict may have been a result of his political activities, since he became a strong supporter of the Whigs under Charles James Fox, and was active in the 1788 election for the seat at Westminster.
In September 1795 (by which time the French Revolutionary War had been underway for two and a half years) Williamson joined the armed ship Grampus 54, sailing from St. Helens for Torbay with a fleet of transports on 4 October and arriving at Cork in early November with six regiments of cavalry that were destined for the West Indies. His ship was intended to join Rear-Admiral Hugh Christian’s convoy for the Leeward Islands, which in November and December was twice forced by foul weather to return to Portsmouth.
Waiting at Cork to join Christian, the Grampus attempted to sail with her convoy on 9 February, only to have to run for Plymouth six days later, having lost her foreyard and damaged her topmasts in a gale. Days later she departed for Spithead only to put back again; it was only on 21 March that she was able to at long last join Christian’s convoy when it appeared off Plymouth. By May she was at Barbados, and in June she took a convoy from Dominica to Martinique, before returning to Portsmouth on 27 July with the West Indies trade. Sailing around to Chatham, she was paid off in September.
In October 1796 Williamson commissioned the new Agincourt 64, a ship that surprisingly remained loyal during the Nore mutiny, which erupted on 12 May 1797, her crew ignoring the arguments of sailors from other ships to join the action. On 11 October the Agincourt was one of the ships involved in the hard-fought Battle of Camperdown, but was slow to engage the enemy, and did not suffer a single casualty. Williamson was subsequently brought to a court-martial for cowardice, negligence, and disaffection on the instigation of Captain Hopper, who commanded the Marines on his ship. His court-martial was held on board the Circe 28 in the Medway, lasting from 4 December until 1 January 1798 under the presidency of Vice-Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge. The court found him guilty of disobeying signals and of not getting into action but cleared him of cowardice and disaffection. The sentence, to be placed at the bottom of the list of captains and rendered incapable of further service (thus remaining forever on half-pay), appears to have broken him, although to his credit he pledged his half-pay to the voluntary contribution.
He had married (probably in 1764) Frances Young of Dublin who died in 1812; apparently, they had no children. Captain Williamson died on 27 October 1798 at his lodgings in Woodstock Street, near Bond Street in London after a short illness caused by ‘an inflammation to the liver and bowels’. Some years after his death, a rumour suggested that the disgraced captain had not died in 1798, but instead changed his name and lived quietly out of the public eye; however, there is no doubt that he died a few months after his court-martial.
The question remains: why after his fatal lapse in Hawaii was Williamson not court-martialled, but instead repeatedly promoted and given ships to command, especially considering the widespread denunciation of his actions by his fellow officers. It has been suggested that the Admiralty did not want to initiate another controversial court-martial, so soon after the divisive Keppel-Palliser affair. Perhaps more convincing is the suggestion that Williamson was well-connected to the Whig establishment around the Duchess of Devonshire, and benefited from the patronage of her brother, Earl Spencer, when he became First Lord in 1794. Nevertheless, Lady Spencer, the wife of the First Lord, described Williamson as ‘a blackguard’.
In fact, although regarded as intelligent, Williamson was a difficult and tyrannical individual, disliked by most of those with whom he came into contact. One officer went so far as to state that he was a ‘wretch, feared & hated by his inferiors, detested by his equals, & despised by his superiors; a very devil, to whom none of our midshipmen have spoke for above a year.’ Apparently, he had little respect for authority, challenging Lord Chatham, First Lord of the Admiralty (and brother of prime minister William Pitt) to a duel, and being court-martialed for disrespect to his superior, Rear-Admiral Christian.