LETTERS from a Royal Navy Commander reliving the capture of pirate ships during the Napoleonic wars have been discovered in the archives of an Enfield library.

The documents relate to Arthur McMeekan, who began his naval career in 1799 aged around 12, which was not uncommon at that time.

He fought in the siege of Cadiz, part of the Spanish campaign against Napoleon. He was eventually promoted to the position of commander, a position he held for 15 years, after several victories which included seizing a Spanish ship which had been commandeered by the 600 French prisoners on board, a victory which left him with a head wound and dislocated arm.

McMeekan describes the moment he was hit by gunfire, on May 26, 1810, in vivid detail. The self-penned account of his career, currently held in the Local Studies Unit at Thomas Hardy House, was written in a bid to claim a military pension.

In a letter written to the Lord High Admiral, believed to have been the then prince, later William IV, McMeekan said: “[I] went with the boats for the purpose of boarding her, but was repulsed in three attempts, the last of which, while in the act of getting up the ship’s side, was beaten down into the boat by a shot of 32 pounds weight thrown upon [my] chest with such violence that [I] fell and was wounded in the head and [my] shoulder dislocated… [and] notwithstanding this repulse and the bodily suffering [I] endured, assisted in the destruction of this ship.”

McMeekan served under Sir John Barrow, second secretary of the admiralty, known for promoting voyages to the Arctic through the North West Passage.

He was supported in his request for a pension by Barrow, who said his injuries were “equally prejudicial ... as the loss of a limb”. It is not known if McMeekan’s request was ever granted.

McMeekan was promoted to the rank of commander after capturing a French pirate ship off Cape de Gatt, Spain, on April 4 1812.

In 1814 McMeekan was appointed to command a famous ship, the Griper, one of two vessels which later made a successful foray into the North West Passage in 1819. But it appears his injuries forced him to give up in 1815 when he was “paid off” from service.

The letters and documents, which were discovered when they were transferred from Palmers Green Library to the Local Studies Unit at Thomas Hardy House, also show that McMeekan married Eliza Hall in 1829 and had three children, Clara, Arthur and Frederick.

He died aged about 48 in 1835, in Glamorganshire.

His grandson, Francis had an illustrious military career, commanding a battery in the Boer War, retiring to Gloucestershire where he became a Justice of the Peace before dying in 1913.