Josias Rogers

Captain Josias Roberts (1755-24 April 1795), was a British naval officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War and the campaigns in Grenada and Martinique.

He was carried, with much rough treatment, into the interior, and detained for upwards of a year, when he succeeded in making his escape, and, after many dangers and adventures, in getting on board his ship, which happened to be at the time lying in the Delaware River.

For the next fifteen or eighteen months he was very actively employed in Roebuck's boats or tenders, capturing or burning small vessels lurking in the creeks along the North American coast, or landing on foraging expeditions.

After commanding her for sixteen months, in which time he took or assisted in taking more than sixty of the enemy's ships, on 7 April 1782 General Monk, while chasing six small privateers round Cape May, got on shore, and was captured after a stout defence, in which the lieutenant and master were killed and Rogers himself severely wounded.

By the beginning of the following year she was back in the West Indies and was under orders for home, when, at Grenada, where he was conducting the defence of the town against an insurrection of the slaves, he died of yellow fever on 24 April 1795.