West saw action as a junior officer in the first-rate HMS Royal George, the flagship of Admiral Sir Alexander Hood in the Channel Squadron, when he took part in the Glorious First of June and then in the Battle of Groix during the French Revolutionary Wars.

As commanding officer of the third-rate HMS Excellent, West served off the coast of Catalonia and landed with a naval brigade with orders to help defend Rosas which was under attack from some 5,000 French troops in an action during the Napoleonic Wars.

[2] In HMS Excellent he served off the coast of Catalonia and landed with a naval brigade with orders to help defend Rosas which was under attack from some 5,000 French troops in an action in November 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars.

[10] He died at his home in Eaton Square in London on 18 April 1862 and was buried and commemorated by a table tomb at St John's Church at West Wickham in Bromley.

[11] In a 1965 episode of the second television season of Danger Man titled, Parallel Lines Sometimes Meet, Patrick McGoohan playing secret agent John Drake uses the alias John West (as at 21:40) and at the end of the episode, a Russian secret agent says to Drake, "Is it not true that you were named after a famous English admiral?