NAVAL INTEREST: A GERMAN VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF BOXCharles, Collins & Sohne, Hanau, circa 1825 The

NAVAL INTEREST: A GERMAN VARI-COLOUR GOLD SNUFF BOXCharles, Collins & Sohne, Hanau, circa 1825 The hinged cover with central engine-turned panel within an unusual border of applied yellow, white and rose gold foliage and scrolls on a matted ground, the interior engraved with two crests and an inscription detailing the presentation of the box to Capt W H Webley Parry by the wardroom officers of H M S Price Regent, length 8.4cm, weight 85gms.Footnotes:William Henry Webley Parry (1764-1837) was born on 3 March 1764, the youngest of seven children, many of whom died early, of a leading lawyer, William Webley.Webley entered the Navy in 1779 aboard the Britannia 100, Captain Charles Morice Pole, the flagship of Vice-Admiral George Darby in the Channel Fleet, who succeeded to the command of that force in September 1780 with Captain James Bradby serving as his flag-captain. Webley was present at the Relief of Gibraltar in April 1781, and following the change of government in March 1782 and the return to service of a number of senior officers he continued on the Britannia under Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington and Captain Benjamin Hill. An obituary has stated that in 1782 his ship formed part of a squadron sent to intercept an East India fleet that was departing from Brest, and Webley was credited with towing the 'frigate' Lively alongside a French frigate, being slightly wounded under fire; however this claim has not been verified. He did serve under Barrington at the Relief of Gibraltar in October and the subsequent battle of Cape Spartel, and he received the admiral's personal approbation when acting as his aide-de-camp in the latter engagement.Webley was next employed aboard the Grampus 50, Commodore Edward Thompson, who was appointed to command off West Africa in July 1783. Having briefly returned home in 1784 suffering from yellow fever, Thompson died aboard the Grampus of a tropical fever on 17 January 1786, and Webley suffered the disappointment of not having an acting-lieutenancy confirmed. He then joined the sloop Nautilus 16 under Captain Thompson's nephew, Commander Thomas Boulden Thompson, remaining on the African station and surveying the coast from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Negro. The Nautilus returned to Portsmouth in July prior to leaving port at the end of September, and in the following April Webley was involved in the colonisation of Sierra Leone. Further service took the Nautilus to the North American, West Indian and Newfoundland stations prior to her being paid off in December 1788. A period aboard the Salisbury 50, Captain Edward Pellew, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Mark Milbanke at Newfoundland, followed from June 1790, in which vessel Webley was finally commissioned lieutenant on 21 September 1790, and the Salisbury was eventually paid off in December 1791.Webley was aboard the Amphitrite 24, Captain John Child Purvis, at the start of the French Revolutionary War in February 1793, as Pellew's request that he be appointed his first lieutenant aboard the Nymphe 36 had been rejected by the Admiralty because he was deemed insufficiently senior. After the captaincy of the Amphitrite changed hands in May he joined Captain Samuel Hood aboard the Juno 32, going out to the Mediterranean. He was the third lieutenant of this frigate when she sailed in to Toulon on 11 January 1794 after the port had been re-occupied by the French, and Webley was mentioned by Hood in his dispatches for his prominent role in engineering her escape by audacious seamanship. He continued with the Juno during the Corsican campaign from February, being present in the attack on the Martello Tower in the bay of that name, and after commanding thirty seamen in the assault on San Fiorenzo and serving as an aide-de-camp to Major-General Thomas Dundas he later commanded a boat at the capture of Bastia.Webley next volunteered his services as the first lieutenant of the San Fiorenzo 36, Captain Charles Tyler, which French frigate had been salvaged at the capture of Calvi, but when that officer was removed to the Diadem 64 during August 1794 whilst sailing the prize to Gibraltar, Webley rejoined Hood, who in the meantime had been appointed to the Aigle 36. A year was spent in the eastern Mediterranean, and after Hood transferred to the Zealous 74 in April 1796 Webley remained aboard the Aigle to which Captain Tyler had been appointed, seeing service in the Adriatic to assist the Austrian army from August. In the spring of 1797 the Aigle rendezvoused with the Mediterranean Fleet in the Tagus, having passed though the defeated Spanish fleet following the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 14 February, and it was later reported that during this period Webley had gallantly jumped into a heaving sea with a rope to rescue three men who had fallen overboard from the frigate.Rejoining Captain Hood in the Tagus as the senior lieutenant aboard the Zealous 74, he commanded a boat in attacks upon the blockaded Spanish fleet in Cadiz during the summer of 1797, and from 21-25 July was present in Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson's unsuccessful assault on Santa Cruz, Tenerife. Returning to Cadiz, Webley boarded and carried a Spanish vessel, the Isabella 10, and when the Zealous was sent into the Mediterranean as part of Nelson's detached force in 1798 he fought at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August. As a reward for his participation in the battle he was promoted commander, but he spent the next nine months on the coast of Egypt and Syria, being dispatched on one occasion to confer with the pasha at Acre, and it was not until June 1799 that he reached England with dispatches from Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent and Rear-Admiral Lord Nelson.In August 1800 he was appointed to the sloop Savage 14, which arrived at Plymouth on 20 October with a convoy from the Downs via Portsmouth and by the end of November was back in the Downs. On 9 December she set off for Portsmouth prior to returning on 21 December, nine days later she departed for Portsmouth with two East Indiamen and a fleet of coasters and victuallers from where she again returned to the Downs, having been briefly forced to turn back for the Hampshire port due to adverse winds. On 8 January she departed the Downs for Le Havre with French prisoners of war, by the 16th she was back off Deal, and thereafter she appears to have remained on the Kentish station through February. The pattern of convoy duty to Portsmouth resumed throughout the spring and summer until 21 August when she arrived at Sheerness with a convoy of victuallers from the Downs, prior to going into harbours for repairs. Here a court-martial dismissed the vessel's surgeon for drunkenness and for not attending to his duty, and the vessel also experienced a tragedy when a ship's boy lost his life after tumbling down the main hatchway.On 23 September 1801 the Savage left Sheerness for the Downs, and two days later she sailed from that station for the westward in the company of the Amazon 38, Captain William Parker, which was flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Lord Nelson, although that frigate soon put back. Webley's command then reportedly went out on a cruise in November, was back in the Downs by December, and undertook a further cruise in the new year. She came into the Downs from Plymouth on 12 March 1802, prior to apparently enjoying another cruise, and on 21 April she arrived at Portsmouth from the Downs, with Webley being praised in the Press for helping to preserve the cargo of a richly-laden vessel that had gone aground on Beachy Head. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com