Capt Sir William Howe Mulcaster CB, KCH, KTS (1783 – 12 March 1837) was an officer in the British Royal Navy who played a distinguished part in the Anglo-American War of 1812, in particular in the Engagements on Lake Ontario. Early life He was the son of Major General Frederick George Mulcaster (27 February 1739/40 – 18 August 1797) of the Royal Engineers and Mary Juliana Auchmuty (1750–1830), his father's second wife. His mother was a daughter of the Reverend Samuel Auchmuty DD (1725–1777), the Rector of Trinity Church, New York. It seems likely that he was named after General Sir William Howe, whom his father came to know as his ADC, when serving in North America. His elder half-brother was Lt-Gen Sir Frederick William Mulcaster (1772–1846), born in Florida. The family returned to England together in 1778. William was baptised in Saint Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands on 30 October 1783. Naval career Mulcaster was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy in January 1800. In 1809, he was serving as a lieutenant in the sixth-rate vessel . One of his fellow officers was his future commander, James Lucas Yeo. Confiance played a significant part in the capture of Cayenne, for which Mulcaster received a commemorative sword from the Prince Regent of Portugal and was promoted to commander. He was appointed to command the brig-rigged sloop-of-war serving at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Shortly after war with the United States broke out in 1812, Emulous was wrecked on Cape Sable Island, and Mulcaster was recruited for service on the Great Lakes by Yeo (whose frigate, had also been wrecked shortly before in the Caribbean). Mulcaster was initially offered command of the flotilla on Lake Erie but he declined on grounds of the scarcity of resources there. Instead, he acted as second in command to Yeo. In that role, he commanded the sloop in 1813 in several actions on Lake Ontario against the American squadron led by Isaac Chauncey. Both combatants on Lake Ontario were building progressively larger ships of war. Yeo laid down a frigate, to be named , and requested the Admiralty to promote Mulcaster to the rank of post-captain to command her. This was agreed. Before the ship was launched, in late 1813, Mulcaster commanded several vessels from the Lake Ontario flotilla which were escorting supply convoys up the Saint Lawrence River. He encountered the vessels of American General