1st Edition
Recollections of my Sea Life 1808-1830 by Captain John Harvey Boeteler
Captain Boteler (1796-1885) came from a naval family, entering the navy as a Volunteer, First Class in 1808, was made lieutenant in September 1815, commander in 1830 and captain in 1851. He left the navy in 1830. These recollections, full of well-told naval anecdote, were written in old age, and published only for private circulation. They can be considered accurate, though dates are sometimes unclear.
Boteler describes his service in the Baltic between 1809 and 1812, though there was an intervening period in the Channel and the North Sea before he returned to the Baltic late in the Napoleonic War. He served after the war in Gibraltar and on the Jamaica station, engaged in the suppression of piracy, and then more generally in the West Indies. Boteler quotes a detailed contemporary account of the battle of Navarino, 1827.
INTRODUCTION
AUTHOR'S PRÉFACÉ
CHAPTER I
The Botelers—Joining the Navy—Prison ships in the Medway—North
Sea—Baltic convoys
CHAPTER II
Channel—North Sea—Baltic
CHAPTER III
West Indies—Passing for Lieutenant—Channel—Battle of Waterloo
CHAPTER IV
Lieutenant—Antelope, flagship on the Leeward Islands station
CHAPTER V
The Seagull, tender to the guardship at Sheerness
CHAPTER VI
Lent to the Royal Yacht—Visit to the battlefield of Waterloo
CHAPTER VII
The Ringdovc—Jamaica—Suppression of piracy
CHAPTER VIII
In command of the Renegade—The Spanish Main—Invalided
CHAPTER IX
Half Pay—The Albion—To Gibraltar with troops—Lisbon
CHAPTER X
The Training Brigs—In command of the Lyra
CHAPTER XI
Return to the A Ibion—Battie of Navarino
CHAPTER X II
Royal Yacht—In command of the Onyx—The Navarino Court-Martial
—Promoted Commander—Marriage and close of service
INDEX
PLAN—The entrance to the Baltic
Biography
David Bonner-Smith