# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Smith, William Harris

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​SMITH. (Retired Commander, 1831. f-p., 17; h-p., 36.)
William Harris Smith was born 17 Feb. 1781, and died in 1846.
This officer entered the Navy, in Jan. 1794, as a Boy, on board the Pegasus 28, Capt. Robt. Barlow, with whom he continued employed on the Home station in the Aquilon 32, and, as Midshipman, in the Phoebe of 44 guns, until made Lieutenant, 10 Aug. 1801, into the Hunter sloop, Capt. Geo. Jones. In the Pegasus he was present in Lord Howe’s battles 28 and 29 May and 1 June, 1794; in the Aquilon he took part in Lord Bridport’s action with the French fleet off Ile de Groix 23 June, 1795; and in the Phoebe he assisted at the capture of L’Atalante corvette of 16 guns, La Néréide of 36 guns and 330 men, L’Africaine of 44 guns and 715 men (including 400 troops and artificers), L’Heureux corvette of 22 guns and 220 men, three privateers carrying in the whole 58 guns and 455 men, and L’Hasard letter-of-marque of 10 guns and 60 men, laden with spices, ivory, and gum, from Senegal, valued at 10,000l. La Néréide did not surrender until after a close action of 45 minutes, productive of a loss to herself of 20 killed and 55 wounded, and to the British, out of 261 men, of 3 killed and 10 wounded; and the resistance of L’Africaine was protracted until, in the course of a desperate night-action of two hours, she had sustained (although the Phoebe, out of 239 men, had but 1 killed and 12 wounded) the terrific loss of at least 200 killed and 143 wounded, the greater part of them mortally. For his gallantry in the latter exploit, which was achieved 19 Feb. 1801, Capt. Barlow was rewarded with the honour of Knighthood. While in charge in 1797 of a very small privateer, prize to the Phoebe, Mr. Smith had been captured by La Zoé, a powerful privateer, of 18 guns and 150 men. In consequence of this misadventure he was detained for three months in a French prison. He was then, however, released, and enabled to rejoin the Phoebe. His ​appointments after he left the Hunter (in which vessel and her boats he appears to have been actively engaged in the suppression of smuggling on the coast of Cornwall) were – 2 June, 1802, to the Neptune 98, Capts. Fras. Wm. Austen and Wm. O’Brien Drury, stationed in the Channel – 2 Oct. 1804 (having left the Neptune in the preceding April), to the Montagu 74, Capt. Robt. Waller Otway, on the north coast of Spain, where he served for about three months – 26 June, 1805, to the Prince George 98, Capt. Geo. Losack, whom he accompanied to the West Indies – 25 May, 1808, after eight months of half-pay, to the Combatant 18, Capts. Thos. Fenwick and Wm. Mather, employed in the river Weser and off Heligoland, where he had charge of four gun-boats – 16 Jan. and 4 March, 1809, to the Merope 16 and Monmouth 64, in the latter of which ships (they were both commanded by Capt. Michael Dodd) he united in the operations connected with the Walcheren expedition – in Oct. 1810, for nine months (he had quitted the Monmouth in the previous June), to the Tisiphone 20, Capt. Wm. Love, stationed as a guard-ship in the Needles Passage – 14 Nov. 1812, to the Fox 32, Capt. Wm. Paterson, attached to the force on the coasts of Spain and America – and, in June, 1813, to the command of the Bostock hired armed ship. While cruizing in the Channel in command of a tender belonging to the Tisiphone, he captured a French privateer of superior force. The Bostock, in which vessel he remained until April, 1814, was at first employed as hospital-ship to the fleet in the Chesapeake, and afterwards as a cartel between Halifax and Salem Bay and Boston. In 1828 Mr. Smith was appointed to the Ordinary at Greenhithe, but being unfortunately arrested for debt it was not in his power to avail himself of it. He accepted the rank of Commander on the Retired List 30 Dec. 1831.
He married first in 1808, and, his wife dying 7 May, 1832, a second time, in 1834. He was again left a widower 1 Oct. 1842.