George Walker (privateer)
The two cruised with little success during the year, and, coming into the English Channel in December, the Boscawen, a weakly built ship, iron-fastened, almost fell to pieces; Walker managed run it ashore at St Ives on the north Cornish coast on 24 November 1745.
This was a squadron of four ships — King George, Prince Frederick, Duke, and Princess Amelia—known collectively as the "Royal Family", which carried in the aggregate 121 guns and 970 men.
After cruising for a year, and having made prizes for over £200,000 the Royal Family put into Lisbon; and, sailing again in July 1747, had been watering in Lagos Bay, when on 6 October a large ship was sighted standing in towards Cape St. Vincent.
She was nearly beaten; but on the Prince Frederick's coming up, the Glorioso, catching the same breeze, fled to the westward, where she was met and engaged by HMS Dartmouth, a ship of 50 guns.
Upon his arrival in England, at the end of the war, Walker, secure in the belief that he was entitled by his exertions to a modest fortune, took up with enthusiasm the cause of the revival of the British fisheries, which was then beginning to occupy public attention.
Walker, late Commander of the Royal Family Privateers, in the Baltimore sloop, having on board several gentlemen appointed to fix on proper places for establishing a fishery on the coast of Scotland, fell down the River to Gravesend, and is bound to the Isles of Orkney and Zetland for that purpose' From the Orkney and Shetland Islands he sailed down the west coast visiting the islands, sounding the harbours, and obtaining a mass of information as to resources, food, fishing and other industries.
Contemporary pamphlets embodied much of his results and one of them contains the following, with which the reference to this subject may be concluded: 'Captain Walker, late commander of the Royal Family Privateers, in which station he behaved with uncommon Conduct and Bravery, is about taking a long lease of the Isle of Arran for himself and some other gentlemen in order to improve it for the Fishery; a most laudable example of true Patriotism, first boldly to wage war with the enemies of this country and then to employ the Reward of his Dangers and Toils in improving the same at home' In October 1750, a Royal Charter was issued incorporating the Society of the Free British Fishery.
On returning with their booty great numbers of sailors from the Royal Family were, at the alleged instigation of the owners, impressed for the navy and never received their prize money, which, instead of being divided in the stipulated manner, was deposited in the Bank of England and made subject to an order of the Court of Chancery.
Bad as the fate of the common men, the treatment of the Commodore, whose brains and bravery had provided this huge fortune for the owners, but was a child in regard to figures and finance, and the result was his mistreatment.
The 21 May 1756 he was arrested for a debt of £800 at the suit of Belchier and Jalabert, two of the owners, and thrust into King's Bench Prison, where he remained for four years, the first twelve months in close confinement which ruined his health.
[10] In 1773 all of Baillie's rights were bought out by John Schoolbred of London, and the settlement continued to grow, so that in 1775 Walker was resident there in charge of a well-equipped establishment, employing twenty British subjects, engaged in fishing, trading, shipbuilding, lumbering and, to some extent, farming.
20th, George Walker, Esquire, of Seething Lane, Tower St., formerly Commodore and Commander of the Royal Family private ships of war'; and an entry in the register of the church of All Hallows, Barking-by-the-Tower, attests his burial there on 24 September 1777.
He has left an imperishable name as the greatest of the English privateer captains, a man singularly modest, conspicuously sincere, brave as a lion, untiring and fearless in the performance of his duty, and clever in all things but those affecting his own pocket.
