Lot Essay
]3The published Naval General Service Medal rolls confirm Michael Dwyer as a Lieutenant aboard the Revolutionnaire for the operations off St. Sebastian in September 1813.
Commander Michael Dwyer entered the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman aboard H.M.S. Galgo in November 1804. Subsequently appointed a Midshipman in the Frigate Unite in July of the following year, he went on to witness extensive action, not least in 'a very gallant action of an hour and half in Sagona Bay' on 1.5.1811, when in company with the Pomone and Scout, Unite contributed to the near total destruction of the Armed Store Ships Giraffe and Nourice, these latter having been supported by a 5-gun Battery, a Martello Tower and a body of about 200 regular troops. On 4 July of the same year, while in one of Unite's boats, Dwyer also participated in the capture of the 'vigorously defended' enemy Brig St. Francois de Paule, the action being fought out under 'a shower of grape from a Battery at Port Hercule on the Roman Coast'. Later that day, he assisted Captain Clifford of the Cephalus in a 'very spiritedly cutting out' of three Merchantmen between Civita Vecchai and the mouth of the Tiber.
Advanced to Lieutenant in March 1812, by which stage he had transferred to the Sloop Minstrel, Dwyer next saw action in August of the same year, when as part of a plan to capture two Privateers, he was landed in the vicinity of the port of Biendom, near Alicante, with a small party of Tars. O'Byrne takes up the story:
'At the head of a party of only seven men, he successfully stormed, in the face of a desperate resistance, a Battery of six 9-pounders, garrisoned by eighty Genoese ... Before, however, Mr. Dwyer and his little band of heroes, after spiking the guns of the Battery, could regain their boat, they were surrounded by a detachment of 200 French troops and were ultimately overwhelmed; but not until, of the British handful, one man had been killed, the six others desperately wounded, and their gallant leader stabbed by a bayonet in seventeen places of left arm and side, besides receiving, as in other parts of his body, a desperate gunshot wound through the right shoulder which has ever since deprived him of the use of that arm. We may add that, in admiration of their consummate valour, the prisoners were at once set at liberty by their generous enemy'.
In consequence of his wounds, the gallant Dwyer was presented with an 'elegant sword' by the Patriotic Fund, in addition to being awarded a pension. Appointed to the Revolutionnaire in July 1813, he 'occasionally served in the trenches at the ensuing siege of St. Sebastian and materially hastened the fall of that important place by commanding the Division of Boats which stormed and captured the Island of St. Clara'. He was afterwards instrumental in saving his ship when she became stranded in a 'tremendous hurricane' in St. Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope in July 1816. Dwyer latterly received his own command on the Plymouth Station and was advanced to Commander in September 1842, following Queen Victoria's visit to Scotland, on which occasion he had been Captain of the Surveying Steamer the Fearless.
Commander Michael Dwyer entered the Royal Navy as an Able Seaman aboard H.M.S. Galgo in November 1804. Subsequently appointed a Midshipman in the Frigate Unite in July of the following year, he went on to witness extensive action, not least in 'a very gallant action of an hour and half in Sagona Bay' on 1.5.1811, when in company with the Pomone and Scout, Unite contributed to the near total destruction of the Armed Store Ships Giraffe and Nourice, these latter having been supported by a 5-gun Battery, a Martello Tower and a body of about 200 regular troops. On 4 July of the same year, while in one of Unite's boats, Dwyer also participated in the capture of the 'vigorously defended' enemy Brig St. Francois de Paule, the action being fought out under 'a shower of grape from a Battery at Port Hercule on the Roman Coast'. Later that day, he assisted Captain Clifford of the Cephalus in a 'very spiritedly cutting out' of three Merchantmen between Civita Vecchai and the mouth of the Tiber.
Advanced to Lieutenant in March 1812, by which stage he had transferred to the Sloop Minstrel, Dwyer next saw action in August of the same year, when as part of a plan to capture two Privateers, he was landed in the vicinity of the port of Biendom, near Alicante, with a small party of Tars. O'Byrne takes up the story:
'At the head of a party of only seven men, he successfully stormed, in the face of a desperate resistance, a Battery of six 9-pounders, garrisoned by eighty Genoese ... Before, however, Mr. Dwyer and his little band of heroes, after spiking the guns of the Battery, could regain their boat, they were surrounded by a detachment of 200 French troops and were ultimately overwhelmed; but not until, of the British handful, one man had been killed, the six others desperately wounded, and their gallant leader stabbed by a bayonet in seventeen places of left arm and side, besides receiving, as in other parts of his body, a desperate gunshot wound through the right shoulder which has ever since deprived him of the use of that arm. We may add that, in admiration of their consummate valour, the prisoners were at once set at liberty by their generous enemy'.
In consequence of his wounds, the gallant Dwyer was presented with an 'elegant sword' by the Patriotic Fund, in addition to being awarded a pension. Appointed to the Revolutionnaire in July 1813, he 'occasionally served in the trenches at the ensuing siege of St. Sebastian and materially hastened the fall of that important place by commanding the Division of Boats which stormed and captured the Island of St. Clara'. He was afterwards instrumental in saving his ship when she became stranded in a 'tremendous hurricane' in St. Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope in July 1816. Dwyer latterly received his own command on the Plymouth Station and was advanced to Commander in September 1842, following Queen Victoria's visit to Scotland, on which occasion he had been Captain of the Surveying Steamer the Fearless.