Sir George Augustus Alexander Westphal (27 March 1785 – 12 January 1875) was a Nova Scotian admiral in the Royal Navy who served in more than 100 actions. He was midshipman on HMS Victory during the Battle of Trafalgar.
Early life
Westphal was born on 27 March 1785 in Nova Scotia, the son of George Westphal and older brother of Admiral Philip Westphal.
He joined the Royal Navy aged 13 as a first class volunteer on board the Royal navy frigate stationed in North America. Later he moved to serve on the home station and in the West Indies as a Masters mate and midshipman on and .
In March 1803 Westphal joined the 32 gun fifth rate frigate HMS Amphion as a midshipman whilst transporting Horatio Nelson to the Mediterranean to take command. Westphal was transferred to HMS Victory.
Battle of Trafalgar
On 21 October 1805 Westphal was in the Battle of Trafalgar fighting on Nelson's flagship Victory. Westphal was shot in the head and taken to the sick bay, where he was laid near the injured Nelson.
Westphal explained in an 1842 article in the United Service magazine:
Many years after the battle, the Admiralty asked Westphal to identify Nelson's coat after Prince Albert had bought it for the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Westphal was able to authenticate it with his fragments.
After Trafalgar
Westphal served as a midshipman on , the flagship of Lord Collingwood. Ocean was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line commanded by Captain Frances Pender.
Westphal went on to serve as a midshipman on , a 120-gun first-rate ship of the line and flagship of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent.
On 15 August 1806 Westphal was promoted to lieutenant on the sloop in the West Indies. He was captured when the French privateer Alerte took , the merchant ship he was returning to England on, during which action he was again severely wounded while leading her resistance. However he escaped from prison in Guadeloupe and was picked up by an American ship. He returned to the West Indies as a lieutenant aboard , and later , ships under the command of Commodore Sir George Cockburn. He fought on land during the 1809 invasion of Martinique.
After another period in home waters, he returned to West Indies where he served aboard HMS Chesapeake. On 11 (or 12) July 1813, Westphal, by then first lieutenant of , led a group of boats into Ocracoke Inlet during Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn's campaign against Portsmouth and Ocracoke Island in North Carolina. Their targets were two privateer schooners, Anaconda and Atlas, as well as a revenue cutter. As the British boats approached, the Americans opened fire. Westphal's division, attacked and captured both privateers. However, the revenue cutter escaped up the Neuse River to New Bern, where she gave warning of the British forces, permitting the preparation of defences that forestalled the Royal Navy from any further advance. Both privateers were condemned at Halifax and the British took them into service, under her name, and Atlas as HMS St Lawrence. Westphal, newly promoted to commander with backdate to 8 July, commissioned Anaconda.
The Anaconda was refitted at Halifax, and Westphal received a crew of 60 men, most of whom were the dregs of the fleet, offered by their captains when Admiral John Borlase Warren asked for drafts. Her first task was to escort a convoy of twelve merchant vessels from there to the West Indies. While doing so she fought off an attack by two large American privateers. One of the privateers surrendered after losing her jib-boom and fore-top-mast but then escaped when the Anaconda lost her own fore-top-mast chasing after the second privateer. Warren then transferred the Anaconda to the Jamaica station.
In March 1814, the Anaconda was stationed off the Mississippi delta under the orders of Captain Clement Milward of . After their defeat at Fort Bowyer, the British turned their attention to an attack on New Orleans. In the run-up to battle, Captain Nicholas Lockyer captured an American flotilla, consisting primarily of five gunboats, in the Battle of Lake Borgne. Anaconda did not contribute her boats and crew to the battle, but evacuated the 77 men who had been wounded there.