BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF JOHN WESTLEY WRIGHT, ESQ. COMMANDER IN THE ROYAL NAVY

Summary

THE general interest which the sufferings of this unfortunate gentleman have excited, was of itself a sufficiently imposing claim on us for the record of them in the Naval Chronicle; but we have hitherto been unable to obtain any authentic documents beyond those which were already before the public, and generally known; we are now, by the favour of a gentleman to whom the Naval Chronicle is still more especially indebted, enabled to present the following Memoir, drawn up from original papers, and affording, we believe, matter of exclusive information, and consequently an additional instance, among many, by which our Chronicle may fairly assume the character of a repository of original intelligence, alike eligible to the cursory curiosity of the general reader, and to the more serious reference of the future historian of the present times.

In adverting to the memory of Captain Wright, we are assured of the general sympathy of our readers. Who can recollect the manly fortitude he evinced when in the power of his obdurate enemy, without experiencing the most gratifying sense of British firmness? Who can reflect on his long series of sufferings, and, finally, untimely fate, without the most sincere detestation of revolutionary tyranny–of a dark and dastardly tyrant–the lustre of whose real character, contrasted with that of his noble victim, would be extinguished by the faintest of its beams.