# Royal Naval Biography/Bissell, William

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WILLIAM BISSELL, Esq. [Commander.]
Was the son of a clergyman, and a native of Tattenhall, in Cheshire. His younger brother. Captain Austin Bissell, an eminently distinguished officer, perished in the Blenheim 74, bearing the flag of Sir Thomas Troubridge, on his return from Madras to the Cape of Good Hope, in Feb. 1807.
This officer entered the navy as midshipman on board the Inflexible 64, Captain Rowland Cotton, with whom he sailed to the relief of Gibraltar, in Mar. 1781: he was also in the same ship under the command of Captain the Hon. J. Chetwynd, in the last action between Sir Edward Hughes and Mons. De Suffrein, fought off Cuddalore, in the East Indies, June 20th, 1783. On his return to England, he joined the Culloden 74, then commanded by Captain Cotton; and we subsequently find him serving in the Fortune sloop, Orion 74, Porcupine 24, Victory first rate, and Winchelsea frigate. In the beginning of 1790, he was entrusted with the command of a small cutter, borrowed from the Commissioners of the Irish Revenue, and employed as a tender to the Porcupine; on the 18th May in the same year, he was severely ​wounded in a rencontre with a large armed smuggling lugger; and in July 1794, he received the subjoined testimonial: on the 22d of the same month, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.
“These are to certify that Mr. William Bissell served as midshipman on board H.M.S. Orion, under my command, in Admiral Earl Howe’s engagements with the French fleet, on the 29th May and 1st June, 1794, in both which actions he distinguished himself by spirited exertions and officer-like conduct,
(Signed)“John T. Duckworth.”
Mr. Bissell’s first appointment, as lieutenant, was to the Gibraltar 80, Captain John Fakenham, which ship formed part of the fleet under Vice-Admiral Hotham, in the action off Frejus, July 13th, 1795. He was likewise present at the battle of Camperdown, having been appointed to the Montagu 74, Captain John Knight, a short time previous to that memorable event. In Oct. 1800, he commanded the boats of that ship at the capture and destruction of thirteen French vessels, in Port Danenne; and three others at the entrance of the Loire: the former was described, by Earl St. Vincent, to be “a meritorious piece of service;” and, in reporting the latter exploit. Captain Knight, after alluding to the position of the enemy’s vessels, powerfully protected as they were, in the broad face of day, says, “the boats of the Montagu, with great intrepidity and alacrity, brought them out.” Other services in which Lieutenant Bissell participated are noticed in p. 354 et seq. of Suppl. Part III.
In 1801, this officer was appointed first of the Donegal 80, Captain Sir Richard J. Strachan; and he continued to serve in that ship, under Captain (now Sir Pulteney) Malcolm, until Dec. 1805; when he was removed, on his own application, to the Powerful 74, Captain Robert Plampin, then off the Canary Islands, and destined to the East Indies. But for this removal he would have been present in Sir John T. Duckworth’s action, at St. Domingo, Feb. 6th, 1806.
Shortly after the arrival of the Powerful in India, Mr. Bissell was taken ill; and whilst an inmate of the hospital at Madras, he received the lamentable tidings of his gallant brother’s unhappy fate, by which all his hopes of obtaining ​promotion on that station were extinguished. He returned home in the Salcette frigate, early in 1808; and subsequently served as first lieutenant of the Brunswick 74, Captain Thomas Graves, on the Baltic station.
In the beginning of 1809, the Brunswick was beset with ice, and repeatedly driven into very shoal water; on her arrival in Yarmouth roads, she had not a gun or shot on board, the only anchor at her bows wanted a fluke, and she had but one ton of water remaining. In the postscript to Lord Gambier’s official despatch, reporting the result of an attack upon a French squadron in the road of Isle d’Aix, April 11th, 1809, we find the following mention made of Lieutenant Bissell:–
“Since writing the foregoing, I have learnt that the Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel Cochrane, and Lieutenant Bissell, of the navy, were volunteers in the Imperieuse, and rendered themselves extremely useful; the former by commanding some guns on the main-deck, and the latter in conducting one of the explosion vessels.”
The vessel thus alluded to contained about 1,500 barrels of gunpowder, started into puncheons placed end-upward, fastened to each other by hawsers wound round them, and joined together with wedges, having moistened sand rammed down between them, so as to render the whole, from stem to stern, quite solid, and thereby increase the resistance: besides which, on the top of this mass of gunpowder, lay between 300 and 400 charged shells, and nearly as many thousands of hand grenades. She appears to have been ignited when within less than three-quarters of a mile from the enemy’s line: how near to it she exploded, and what effect the blast produced, the French themselves are the most competent to state.
For his gallant conduct on this occasion, Lieutenant Bissell was promoted to the rank of commander, and his commission dated back to April 11th, 1809. He subsequently commanded the Savage, of 16 guns; and was dismissed from that sloop, by the sentence of a court-martial, for running her ashore at Guernsey, in Jan. 1814. He died at Kentish Town, near London, Mar. 31st, 1826.