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Thread: The Battle of the Dogger Bank. 1781.

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    Default The Battle of the Dogger Bank. 1781.

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    The Battle of the Dogger Bank.

    This was a naval battle that took place on 5 August 1781 during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, contemporaneously related to the American Revolutionary War, in the North Sea. It was a bloody encounter between a British squadron under Vice Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and a Dutch squadron under Vice Admiral Johan Zoutman, both of which were escorting convoys.


    Background.

    In December 1780, Great Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic, drawing it militarily into the American War of Independence. The Dutch had for several years been supplying the Americans and shipping French supplies to the Americans, in support of the American war effort. The opening of hostilities with the Dutch meant that Britain's trade with countries on the Baltic Sea (where key supplies of lumber for naval construction were purchased) was potentially at risk, and that the British had to increase protection of their shipping in the North Sea. In order to accomplish this, the British began blockading the Dutch coast to monitor and intercept any significant attempts to send shipping into or out of Dutch ports, and began to protect merchant shipping convoys with armed vessels.

    The Dutch were politically in turmoil, and were consequently unable to mount any sort of effective actions against the British. The result of this inaction was the collapse of their economically important trade. It was finally decided that a merchant fleet had to be launched. On 1 August 1781, Admiral Johan Zoutman led a fleet of some 70 merchantmen from the Texel, protected by seven ships of the line as well as a number of frigates and smaller armed vessels.



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    Depiction of the Dutch line August 5, 1781.

    Admiral Hyde Parker was accompanying a convoy of ships from the Baltic when he spotted the sails of the Dutch fleet at 4am on the morning of 5 August. He immediately despatched his convoy toward the English coast, and ordered his line to give chase rather than prepare for battle.
    Zoutman, whose ships had been interspersed with the merchantmen, signalled his line to form in between Parker and the convoy.
    The ships of Parker's fleet were not in the best of condition, since great demands were placed on the Royal Navy by the demands of the war, and all manner of ships were pressed into service, or did not receive necessary maintenance. Some ships were in such poor condition that the number of guns available to fire was reduced from its normal complement. The ships had had no time to practise the normal fleet manoeuvres. In spite of this, Berwick and Parker's flagship Fortitude, both 74 guns, were both relatively new and in good shape. The Dutch fleet had not seen any significant action due to the British blockade.


    Battle.

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    Batavier


    With a calm sea and a breeze from the north-east, Zoutman manoeuvred his line onto a port tack, heading south-east by east, and awaited Parker, who held the weather gage. The British fleet closed, raggedly at first due to the poor condition of some of the ships into line of battle abreast in accordance with the signal raised at 6.10 am. Two ships were told to change places, which led to a mistake and placed the Dolphin (44) against one of the largest Dutch ships and the Bienfaisant without an opponent.

    When Parker raised the battle flag shortly before 8 am, for close action the British fleet moved closer, surprisingly the Dutch ships did not fire a shot as the British approached until the two fleets were about half a musket shot apart. Zoutman then also raised his flag, and when both commanders raised red flags at the same time, to signal the commencement of firing, opened fire, raking the Fortitude with a broadside. Close action ensued, lasting for three hours and forty minutes. Around mid-morning the Dutch merchantmen moved away from the action and headed back to the Texel. At 11.35 am Parker gave the signal to reform his line as the ships had become unmanageable, which dropped to leeward and limped away from the Dutch.

    Casualties on both sides were high, considering the number of ships involved. (Fewer casualties were suffered, for example, in the Battle of the Chesapeake, fought a month later between fleets more than twice as large.) The British claimed 104 killed and 339 wounded, while the Dutch claimed 142 killed and 403 wounded. There were private reports made that the Dutch casualties were actually much higher, possibly reaching 1,100. The Hollandia sank the same night. Her flag, which was kept flying, was taken away by the Belle Poule, and carried to Admiral Parker.

    Aftermath.

    Although the Dutch celebrated the battle as victory, their fleet did not leave harbour again during the war and their merchant trade remained crippled. At least one convoy did make it to the Baltic, but it flew under Swedish flags and was accompanied by a Swedish frigate.

    Parker claimed victory but considered that he had not been properly equipped for his task, and on arrival at the Nore, met King George telling him "I wish Your Majesty better ships and younger officers. As for myself, I am now too old for the service". He then resigned his command.

    The battle had no real impact on the general course of the war.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Order of battle.

    British (Hyde Parker.

    Ships in the line:

    Berwick 74 (Captain John Ferguson)


    Dolphin 44 (Captain William Blair)


    Buffalo 60 (Captain William Truscott)


    Fortitude 74 (Captain George Robertson, Parker's flag)


    Princess Amelia 80 (Captain John Macartney )


    Preston 50 (Captain Alexander Graeme)


    Bienfaisant 64 (Captain Richard Brathwaite)


    Other vessels:


    Artois 40-gun fifth rate (Captain John MacBride)


    Latona 38-gun fifth rate (Captain Hyde Parker)


    Belle Poule 36-gun fifth rate (Captain Philip Patton)


    Cleopatra 32-gun fifth rate (Captain George Murray)


    Surprise 14-gun cutter (Lieutenant Peter Rivett)

    Last edited by Bligh; 12-18-2018 at 08:25.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Admiral Sir Hyde Parker 5th Baronet.


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    1714-82.

    He was born at Tredington, Worcestershire, on 1 February 1714, the youngest son of the Reverend Hyde Parker, rector of that village, and of his wife Mary Reeves. He was the father of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, and the grandfather of Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker.

    Parker initially served in the merchant service and did not join the navy until the age of twenty-four. He was employed as an able seaman and later as a masters’ mate in Commodore George Anson’s expedition that circumnavigated the globe between 1740-4, serving firstly aboard the Pearl 40 and Gloucester 50, both commanded by Captain Matthew Mitchell, and later the pennant ship Centurion 50.

    On 16 January 1745 he was commissioned lieutenant of the Harwich 50, Captain Philip Carteret, sailing out to the East Indies. He held various appointments on that station, including aboard the Preston 50, Captain the Earl of Northesk, and Princess Mary 60, Captain Thomas Griffin, which ship flew the flag of that officer’s father, Rear-Admiral Thomas Griffin. On 24 March 1748 Parker was appointed captain of the Lively 20, and he returned with her to England in the summer of the following year.

    In November 1751 Parker commanded the Vanguard 70 on harbour duties before going out to Minorca with troops in the spring of 1752 and being paid off that November. During 1753 he was engaged in fishery protection with the new sloop Cruiser 8, and in the autumn of 1755 he joined the new Squirrel 20 in which he was sent to negotiate the release of some Christian slaves from Morocco during the following year. Famously he incurred the wrath of the ‘emperor’ for turning up in court with dirty boots. He afterwards served in the North Sea and in the Elbe, capturing the 30,000 guinea Amerique from St. Domingo, and the privateer Très Vénèrable on 19 October.

    In October 1757 he commissioned the Brilliant 36, a vessel in which he would capture a host of enemy ships. His first major prize, in company with the Coventry 28, Captain Carr Scrope, was the privateer Dragon 24, and after sinking the Intrépide 14 off Bayonne he participated in Commodore Lord Howe’s operations against the French coast during the latter part of 1758. He then captured the Nymphe 20 and the Vengeur 12, and subsequently assisted Rear-Admiral George Brydges Rodney in the assault on Le Havre, shortly afterwards making a prize of the French privateer Basque 22.

    Following his commissioning of the Norfolk 74 in November 1759, Parker sailed to the East Indies in January of the following year. Her he exchanged into the Grafton 68 when the Norfolk was taken as his flagship by Rear-Admiral Charles Stevens. He served at the reduction of Pondicherry on 15 January 1761 and that of Manila in the autumn of 1762. In command of the Panther 60, he was despatched with the Argo 28, Captain Richard King, to seek out an expected Spanish treasure ship, but failing to find her they had the immense good fortune to capture another vessel instead. This was the galleon Santisima Trinidad, bound from Cavite in the Philippines for Acapulco, manned by over seven hundred crew, and which was so well laden it earned him 30,000 guineas in prize money alone.
    He returned to England in 1764 and remained unemployed before serving aboard the Romney 50 as flag-captain to Commodore Samuel Hood in North America for a few weeks during 1770. Having been appointed to commission the new Invincible 74 for service in the Channel in November 1776, he left his station in the Downs to cruise between Ushant and Cape Finisterre during the summer of 1777.

    On 23 January 1778 Parker was promoted rear-admiral, taking Captain Charles Middleton’s Royal Oak 74 as his flagship, and with Henry Francis Evans as his flag-captain. Commanding a division that was detached from the Channel fleet at Portsmouth during the Kings review of the fleet in May, he eventually sailed for New York on 9 June as second-in-command of Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron’s fleet which had been despatched to meet the threat posed by the sailing of the Comte d’Estaing’s Toulon expedition. When the fleet parted company in mid-ocean following a violent storm Parker managed to get into New York with six sail of the line on 29 August. Following the force’s reunification he sailed to the West Indies with Byron, but in the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779 his commander’s poor tactics meant that Parker’s new flagship, the Conqueror 74, Captain Harry Harmood, together with the rest of his division, was barely engaged.

    Following his elevation to the position of commander in chief of the Leeward Islands on the return home of Byron and the wounded Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington in August, Parker transferred to the Princess Royal 90, retaining Captain Harmood as his flag-captain. This position earned him a great deal more prize money through the good fortune of his cruisers. He also had the responsibility of watching the French fleet at Martinique from his base at St Lucia. On 18 December 1779 elements of his force dashed out of Gros Islet Bay and attacked a convoy of twenty-six French ships, capturing or destroying all but seven which were rescued by Admiral La Motte-Picquet coming out of Fort Royal, Martinique. Early the following year he followed the French admiral who had sailed to Cape François to escort a convoy with seven sail of the line, and he blockaded the French in the Basseterre Roads, Guadeloupe.

    Upon hearing of the imminent arrival of the Comte De Guichen’s fleet Parker returned to St Lucia where he was superseded on 27 March by Admiral Sir George Rodney, who brought four sail of the line to join Parker’s sixteen. Typically, Rodney informed all and sundry that Parker gave him a less than thorough appreciation of the state of the campaign. At the subsequent Battle of Martinique on 17 April 1780 Parker commanded the van but was one of many officers who failed to understand Rodney’s intentions, thereby causing an unsuccessful engagement. This resulted in the commander-in-chief’s censure of his subordinate admiral. After participating in the remainder of the Leeward Islands campaign from May to July Parker returned to England with a convoy in the latter month, flying his flag aboard the Medway 60, Captain Harmood. Although simmering at his rebuke from Rodney he was dissuaded from making any complaint.

    On 26 September 1780 he was promoted vice-admiral, and in March 1781 was appointed to the command of the North Sea station with four sail of the line and a 50-gun vessel, some of which were in poor repair. From 20 March his flag was aboard the Victory 100, Captains Samuel Clayton and John Howarth, and on 31 May he transferred to the Fortitude 74, Captain George Robertson.

    After conveying the Baltic trade of five hundred sail, and having been joined by Commodore Keith Stewart with the Berwick 74 and two frigates, he was nearing home with two hundred sail on 5 August 1781 when he met a Dutch fleet of an equal force off the Dogger bank under the command of Rear-Admiral Johan Arnold Zoutman. The battle that followed was extremely fierce and fought on traditional terms with the two fleets engaging in parallel lines. No result transpired, but Parker nevertheless felt he should have deserved to gain a victory, and he castigated the first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, for failing to provide him with the effective ships that would have won the engagement. He went so far as to claim that he was a victim of treachery and falsehood, and even remained dissatisfied and resentful after the King himself made a state visit to his fleet. Indeed, Parker barely treated the King civilly, persisted with his intention to resign, and refused a knighthood. As a result he was not re-employed until after the fall of the government in 1782.

    In the meantime he had succeeded to the family baronetcy on the death of his brother on 10 July 1782, and shortly afterwards the new government appointed him to succeed Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes as commander-in-chief in the East Indies with his flag aboard the brand new Cato 60, Captain James Clark. After sailing in October, he reached Rio de Janeiro on 12 December, but subsequent to leaving that port the Cato was never seen again. Various stories surfaced, including one that was presented to the Admiralty in 1791 by a Captain Burn in the service of the Nabob of Arcot. This gentleman stated that whilst at Mecca in 1790 he had seen a Malay vessel rigged out with various stores from the Cato, and that further enquiries indicated that she had been wrecked on the Malabar Coast and all her men slaughtered on the orders of the Malay King. In all probability however the Cato had caught fire and foundered at sea.

    Parker married Sarah Smithson of Northumberland in 1734 and had two sons, Harry and Hyde. He also claimed to have adopted the son of the late Captain John Macartney of the Princess Amelia 80, who had been killed at the Battle of the Dogger bank.
    He was strict and a brave officer who did not possess any great skill or imagination, and was known as ‘Old Vinegar’ because of his vitriolic temper. Politically he despised the Lord North government and the first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.
    Last edited by Bligh; 12-29-2018 at 10:44.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Fascinating bit of history. Thanks for sharing.

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    Captain John Ferguson.



    1731-1818. He was the elder son of Captain John Ferguson R.N. of Chigwell, Essex, and of his wife Lydia Cumber. His father was known as the ‘Black Captain of the Forty-Five’ in respect of his ruthless treatment of suspected rebels in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.

    Ferguson was commissioned lieutenant on 17 September 1756, and in 1758 temporarily commanded the Port Mahon 20.

    He was promoted commander on 5 September 1777 and had the Sylph at Plymouth before forming part of the escort to a convoy sailing for the Leeward Islands. By February 1778 the Sylph was at Port Royal, Jamaica, and in the following month was sent up the Mississippi River to demand that the Spanish at New Orleans cease giving succour to rebel privateers and ensure the restoration of British property, although he soon found himself embroiled in a protracted diplomatic dispute. He had left the Sylph by the time she was registered as a fireship in the autumn of 1779.

    Ferguson was posted captain on 21 March 1781, and he commanded the Berwick 74, joining Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker in the North Sea and fighting at the Battle of the Dogger bank on 5 August, where he flew the broad pennant of commodore Hon. Keith Stewart. His command, which lost eighteen men killed and fifty-one wounded, spent some time in repair after this event. He next removed to the Surprise 28, taking a convoy out to Newfoundland in March 1782, and retaining her until paid off in February 1783, during which time he took the American privateer Raven in company with the Assistance 50, Captain James Worth.

    He became a rear-admiral on 14 February 1799, a vice-admiral on 9 November 1805, and an admiral on 31 July 1810.

    Ferguson died at Southampton on 4 April 1818 and was buried at St. Michael’s Church.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain William Blair.


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    1741-1782. He was the son of Daniel Blair of Edinburgh.

    Having served in the merchant marine and then been employed at various times in the navy as a servant, able seaman and midshipman, Blair was commissioned lieutenant on 9 October 1760. From October 1765 until March 1766 he commanded the Deal Castle 24 for the sick Captain Digby Dent, and he briefly held the command of the Senegal from October 1771, taking her around from Spithead to Sheerness where she was docked.

    Her had to wait until 6 December 1777 for further advancement, being promoted to the rank of commander and joining the sloop Wasp 8. He was subsequently posted captain of the Princess Royal 90 on 18 April 1778, and he served as flag captain to Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron in the fleet going out to North America on 9 June, encountering the horrific storms which scattered that force all over the Atlantic. After sailing for the Leeward Islands in December he subsequently fought at Byron’s badly directed Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779. Having been superseded by Captain Harry Harmood when Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker succeeded Byron as the commander-in-chief in the late summer and took the Princess Royal as his flagship, Blair joined the Nonsuch 74 in order to bring her home, and she was paid off in December at Sheerness.

    In March 1781 he commissioned the new Dolphin 44 for service in the North Sea, and on 5 August 1781 he commanded her at the Battle of the Dogger bank, his ship fighting in the line of battle and being roughly handled by the Dutch cannon. This display of courage, in which his ship suffered casualties of eleven men killed and thirty-three wounded, earned him special praise from the Admiralty.

    In September 1781 he was appointed to the new Anson 64, initially serving in the Channel fleet before going out to the Leeward Islands in January. He fought in the leading squadron of Rear-Admiral Francis Drake’s division at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782, and although the action was warm from the start Blair was one of but a few men killed on board the Anson.

    A monument to Blair and Captains William Bayne and Lord Robert Manners who also lost their lives from wounds incurred at the Battle of the Saintes was erected in their memory in Westminster Abbey. His will stated that he resided in the City of London.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain William Truscott.




    1734-98. He was born on 25 November 1734, one of twelve children of John Truscott of Resugga, St. Stephens Brannell, Cornwall, and of his wife Margaret.


    Truscott entered the navy under the patronage of Captain Lord Edgcumbe and his fellow Cornishman, Rear-Admiral Hon. Edward Boscawen, and he saw early service in the East Indies.


    On 8 February 1757 he was commissioned lieutenant of the Newcastle 50, and he took command of this ship when her captain, Colin Michie, was killed shortly after the commencement of the action between Vice-Admiral George Pocock and the Comte d’Ache off Pondicherry on 10 September 1759. All of Truscott’s fellow officers became casualties in this action, with thirty-five men being killed and seventy-seven wounded.


    He was present aboard the Namur 90, Captain John Harrison, flagship of Admiral Sir George Pocock in the expedition to Havana in 1762, and after being promoted commander on 17 August he joined the cutter Lurcher 6 on the Jamaican station, a vessel he retained into the following year on that station, following which he had the Cygnet 18.

    Other than being captain of the Exeter Impressment service in 1770-1 Truscott endured fourteen years of unemployment before he commissioned the American-built Grasshopper 14 at the beginning of 1777. After cruising in the Leeward Islands during the summer she went aground in the Antiguan Roads on 3 December without suffering any significant damage. He then briefly commanded the Cygnet 14 in the Leeward Islands during 1778.


    Having returned home, Truscott was posted captain on 14 December 1778, and he joined the Elizabeth 74 on a temporary basis for Captain Hon Frederick Lewis Maitland, who was otherwise engaged in the court-martials relating to the Battle of Ushant. He took the Elizabeth out to the Leeward Islands and fought at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779, being succeeded on the last day of that month by the returning Maitland with whom he briefly exchanged into the Vengeance 74, and in which he assisted in the capture of three French frigates in December.


    In 1780, having further exchanged into Commodore William Hotham’s Preston 50, Truscott took part in the Leeward Islands campaign including the fleet skirmishes in May where his command suffered three men wounded. The Preston remained at St. Lucia when the fleet headed north during the autumn and was paid off at the end of the year after returning to England with a convoy.


    Truscott commanded the Buffalo 60 at the Battle of the Doggersbank on 5 August 1781, suffering losses of twenty men killed and sixty-four wounded, and after joining the Nonsuch 64 in September he served with the Channel fleet in the autumn. Going out to the Leeward Islands with Admiral Sir George Rodney in January 1782, he fought at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April, and after sailing to North America with the fleet he returned to England with a body of Hessian troops to be paid off at Chatham in August 1783.


    He recommissioned the Ganges 74 in January 1794 and served under Rear-Admiral George Montagu at the time of the Battle of the Glorious First of June. The Ganges went out to the Leeward Islands in October, and at the end of the same month assisted the Montagu 74, Captain William Fooks, in the capture of the Jacobin 24.


    Truscott was promoted rear-admiral on 1 June 1795 and died after a short illness on 31 January 1798 at Exeter. His address at the time of his death was given as St. Sidwell’s, Exeter, Devon.

    He married Mary Crowther and had six sons and three daughters, with three of the former entering the navy, two the army, and the other became a physician. His sixth son, George Truscott, retired with the rank of captain in 1845 whilst another son, John, became a lieutenant-general.



    Truscott lost part of two fingers whilst on active service.
    Last edited by Bligh; 12-20-2018 at 09:53.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain George Robertson.





    1742-91. He was the son of Dr William Robertson of Richmond, Surrey, and of his wife, Mary Seton.


    Robertson was commissioned lieutenant on 5 March 1762 and promoted commander on 4 November 1778. He commissioned the newly purchased fireship Incendiary 8 for the Western Squadron and retained her until the late summer of the following year. He then joined the fireship Firebrand 16 in March 1780, serving with the Channel fleet and participating in the Relief of Gibraltar on 12 April 1781.


    He fought at the Battle of the Doggersbank on 5 August 1781 flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker aboard the Fortitude 74, which ship suffered casualties of twenty men killed and sixty-seven wounded, and was posted captain on 15 August. After joining the Buffalo 60 he was at Sheerness in the autumn and retained her into 1782 before moving to the Danae 32 and going out to Newfoundland in June. Here he captured the American privateer Tiger on 27 August beforethe Danae was eventually paid off in February 1783.


    Robertson recommissioned the aged Aeolus 32 in April 1783, going out to Newfoundland and paying her off at Chatham in January 1784. He then took the newly commissioned Thisbe 28 out to Newfoundland in the following month and thereafter served on that station for three years.


    He died on 21 November 1791 at Kenilworth, Warwickshire.


    Robertson married Ann Lewis of Philadelphia, USA, and had issue three daughters and a son.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain John Macartney.


    1725-81.

    Macartney was commissioned lieutenant on 20 January 1756.
    On 22 September 1759 he was promoted commander and appointed to succeed Commander John Jervis aboard the Porcupine 16 at the newly conquered Quebec. He continued there under the orders of Commodore Lord Alexander Colville over the ensuing winter, and he participated in the operations in the St. Lawrence under that same officer in the following year. Macartney next joined the Racehorse 18 towards the end of 1760, taking many of the crew of the Porcupine with him and going out to Newfoundland with a convoy in March. During 1762 he was cruising in home waters, and he paid the Racehorse off in 1763.

    In 1766 he was appointed to the sloop Hound 10, going out to Africa in January and later assuming command of the Phoenix 44 in June after the death of Captain Archibald Cleveland. He was posted captain of that vessel on 4 September 1766 and paid her off the same month.

    In January 1774 Macartney recommissioned the Mercury 20, going out to North America in March where he served at Boston and off Virginia. In August a charge of misconduct levied against him by the oppressive governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, resulted in Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves despatching Lieutenant Alexander Graeme of the flagship to arrest Macartney and bring the Mercury back to Boston. His alleged misdemeanour had been to engage in a string of letters with the local mayor in which he had expressed his ‘pain and reluctance’ at having to threaten the use of ‘coercive force’ against any rebellious subjects. In the view of Dunmore, Captain Macartney was ‘to have principally at heart the making friends amongst His Majesty’s greatest enemies in this country’. Macartney was duly placed under arrest on 8 September at a time when the Mercury was recovering her stores and ballast, having been driven aground by a hurricane the week before. His arrest stunned Lord Dunmore who quickly despatched a letter to Graves stating that he had not wished to see Macartney court-martialled, but merely removed from the command of the local squadron. In the event the charges against Macartney were dropped and he returned home.
    From the beginning of 1776 until January 1779 he commanded the newly-commissioned Ambuscade 32, going out to North America in July of the former year. During the summer of 1777, whilst cruising between George’s Bank and Nova Scotia in North American waters he sent many prizes into Halifax.

    In 1780 Macartney joined the Princess Amelia 80, and he participated in the Channel fleet campaign of June-December.

    Captain Macartney was killed at the Battle of the Doggersbank on 5 August 1781 whilst commanding the Princess Amelia, which ship suffered casualties on total of nineteen men killed and fifty-six wounded.

    He married Isabella Steuart of Edinburgh who survived him by a mere fifteen months, dying on 20 November 1782 and being buried at St Mary’s Church, Ulverston, Cumbria, where the family had resided. In 1783 their daughter Isabella was awarded a £25 pension in respect of the difficult circumstances in which she had been left following the death of her father.

    Lord Dunmore and Admiral Graves both appear to have regarded Macartney as a sound and diligent officer, but lacking the nous to deal with the subtleties of commanding a squadron against an artful and rebellious populace.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain Alexander Graeme.


    1741-1818.

    He was born on 9 December 1741 at Graemeshall, Holm, on the Orkney Islands, the third son of Mungo Graeme and his wife Jean Chancellor.

    On 17 December 1760 he was commissioned lieutenant of the Temple 68, Captain Lucius O’Brien, seeing service in the Leeward Islands and moving to the Aquilon 28, Captain Chaloner Ogle, on the same station on 17 March 1762. After a brief visit to Newfoundland under Captain Philip Perceval he went on half pay in September 1763 when she was paid off at the peace.

    He was briefly aboard the Portsmouth guardships Thunderer 74, Captain Samuel Hood, from September 1764 until the end of March 1765, and then the Superb 74, Captain Robert Hathorn, from April to October 1765. In October 1765 he was appointed to command the snow Egmont 10 with the rank of lieutenant, going out to Newfoundland in the summer of 1767 and also seeing service off Ireland before leaving her in July 1770. From January 1774 he served aboard the Preston 50, Captain John Robinson, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves in North America.

    Although promoted commander on 9 September 1775 and appointed to the Viper 10 in North American waters, he did not join her but instead held the temporary command of the Mercury 20 from November 1775, transporting Major-General Sir Henry Clinton and several companies of grenadiers from Boston to Sandy Hook for conferral with loyalist groups in the following January. He thereafter commanded the sloop Kingfisher 18 from February 1776, serving under the orders of Captain Henry Bellew of the Liverpool 28 off the Delaware Capes in the summer and in the occupation of Rhode Island on 8 December 1776. In May 1777 he was stationed in the Seaconnet Passage in North America, being attached to Vice-Admiral Lord Howe’s command, and in August was at Boston under the orders of Captain Charles Fielding of the Diamond 32.

    He was posted captain of the Sphinx 20 on 24 January 1778, conveying troops from Rhode Island to Cape Cod in May, and he was present during the fleet manoeuvres off Rhode Island in August 1778. When the fleet returned to Rhode Island from New York to find that the French had left the Sphinx moved in and bombarded the rebel positions around Rhode Island on 29 August.

    He next held the command of the Diamond 32 in succession to Captain Charles Fielding, joining Commodore William Hotham’s small squadron that was despatched from North America at the beginning of November to reinforce Rear-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington at Barbados. This frigate was not present at the defence of St. Lucia on 15 December 1778 however, and that winter Graeme exchanged with Captain John Linzee into the Pearl 32 which he brought home to pay off in the spring of 1779.

    He recommissioned the Tartar 28 in July 1779, serving in the controversial Commodore George Johnstone’s squadron, and off Cape Finisterre on 11 November he was sent in chase of the Spanish frigate Santa Margarita 28, Captain Don Andrea de Viana. He quickly received her surrender after she fell aboard the Tartar and carried away her mizzen topsail yard, although the presence of the remainder of Johnstone’s squadron undoubtedly convinced the enemy of the impracticability of further flight. The Spanish frigate was bought into the navy under her own name. Graeme continued to serve off Portugal with Johnstone in 1780, and another capture was the Infanta Carlotta on 2 September 1780.

    In March 1781 he recommissioned the Preston 50, serving in the North Sea and fighting at the Battle of the Doggersbank on 5 August 1781, where he lost an arm in the action, and where his ship suffered total casualties of ten men killed and forty wounded. He immediately went on half-pay at the start of the following month and was not re-employed for a further thirteen years, during which time he succeeded his elder brother Patrick to the family estates.

    Graeme was appointed to command the Glory 98 in the Channel from January 1795, but in February had to race back to Scotland to comfort his dying mother. He was promoted rear-admiral on 1 June 1795, vice admiral on 14 February 1799, and during that summer was appointed commander-in-chief at the Nore. Flying his flag in the Zealand 64, Captain Thomas Parr, and from June 1800 Captain William Mitchell, he held this position until the resumption of hostilities in April 1803, his flag lieutenant throughout this period being William Pryce Cumby
    On 23 April 1804 he was advanced to the rank of admiral, and he died at Edinburgh on 5 August 1818, being buried at Greyfriars Church in the city.

    Graeme never married, and on his death the family estate past to a distant relative in Jamaica whom he had never met.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

  11. #11
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    Captain Richard Braithwaite.



    1728-1805.

    He was born to an influential Westmoreland family.

    He first served in 1743 when he went out to Jamaica under the patronage of his kinsman, Vice-Admiral Sir Chaloner Ogle, the commander-in-chief. He was commissioned lieutenant on 7 May 1755, having been recommended for promotion by Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hawke, and was advanced to the rank of commander on 29 November 1756. From January 1760 to April 1761 he commanded the Saltash 10.

    He was posted captain on 6 April 1761, recommissioning the frigate Shannon 28 for the Mediterranean and returning from Gibraltar with a number of barbarous pirates as prisoners. He continued in the Channel until 1763, and after a period of unemployment recommissioned the Gibraltar 24 in February 1766, sailing for the Newfoundland station in June, and after returning home commissioning the Liverpool 28 in March 1767 and going out to the same station in May. He later commanded the Liverpool in the Mediterranean from April 1768 before paying her off in 1772.

    In July 1775 he commissioned the new Centurion 50, going out to North America in October, and on 8 December 1776 he served at the occupation of Rhode Island. After a short period at Halifax he joined Vice-Admiral Lord Howe’s fleet at New York, patrolling off Staten Island in July 1777 and after joining the squadron at Halifax reuniting with Howe to participate in the manoeuvres with the French fleet off Rhode Island in August 1778. On 4 November he left New York for Barbados with Commodore William Hotham’s squadron in order to reinforce the Leeward Islands, seeing action at the Battle of St. Lucia on 15 December. During the Battle of Martinique on 17 April 1780 the Centurion was delegated to support the rear squadron as necessary, and he remained with the fleet for the duration of the Leeward Islands campaign from May-July. He returned to England with a convoy in the middle of 1780, whereupon the Centurion was docked for repairs and paid off in September.

    Removing to the Bienfaisant 64 in January 1781 in place of her distinguished commander, Captain John MacBride, he commanded her at the relief of Gibraltar on 12 April 1781, and at the Battle of the Dogger bank on 5 August 1781 where she suffered casualties of six men killed and twenty-one wounded. He left the vessel at the end of the year and did not see any further employment.

    Braithwaite was advanced to flag rank on 21 September 1790, vice-admiral on 1 February 1793, and admiral on 14 February 1799. He died at Greenwich on 28 June 1805.

    He was married to Ulrica Eleanora. His daughter Elizabeth married Admiral Alexander Christie, and he had at least two other daughters who were unmarried in 1790, Georgina and Jane Maria. He was the significantly older cousin of Vice-Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, who served with him for eleven years from 1761. His residence was at Warcop, Kent. On the death of Admiral Thomas Lloyd in 1801 Braithwaite and his family inherited a large portion of his estate in Cilgwyn, Cardiganshire.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

  12. #12
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    Captain John MacBride.

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    c1735-1800. He was Scottish born, the son of Robert MacBride, a Presbyterian minister who moved shortly afterwards to Ballymoney, Country Antrim, and of his wife, a Miss Boyd. His uncle, David MacBride, was an esteemed author on medical matters.



    After joining the merchant service in 1751 MacBride entered the navy as an able seaman aboard the Garland 24 in the West Indies during 1754. On 27 October 1758 he was promoted lieutenant, and three years later he was appointed to the command of the cutter Grace. In August 1761 he cut a privateer out of Dunkirk without the loss of a single man, personally shooting the French captain through the head with a musket.



    He was promoted commander on 7 April 1762 and appointed to the fireship Grampus 10 before removing to the Vulture 14 on 14 October. He next recommissioned the sloop Cruizer 8 for service on 27 May 1763.



    On 20 June 1765 MacBride was posted captain of the frigate Renown 30, and during August he commissioned the new Jason 32 in which he went out to Jamaica in October. During the following January he arrived in the Falkland Islands in company with the bomb Carcass, Commander Thomas Jordon, and the storeship Experiment to claim possession of the territory. After developing Port Egmont and undertaking a number of cruises around the islands a respectful meeting with the governor of the French settlers followed towards the end of the year, but without the latter accepting the British claim.



    After returning home at the beginning of 1767 he recommissioned the Seaford 20, serving on the home station from August 1767 for three years and then commanding the Southampton 32 from August 1771. He was later despatched with a diplomatic mission to secure King George’s sister, Caroline Matilda, the Queen of Denmark, who had separated from the King of Denmark and been imprisoned following an affair that had seen her lover executed, and he escorted her to Zell in the Electorate of Hanover. In April 1773 he commissioned the new Orpheus 32, being present at the fleet review at Spithead in June, and paying her off in August 1774 after serving in home waters.



    On 6 November 1776 MacBride was appointed to the Bienfaisant 64 which was initially fitted as a guardship in the spring of 1777 before being despatched with a convoy to Madeira in June. On 28 August he captured the Boston privateer Tartar 24 in mid-Atlantic, and although she was not greatly engaged he commanded the Bienfaisant at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778,
    vehemently supporting Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel at his subsequent court martial.



    He continued with the Bienfaisant in the Channel under the orders of Admiral Sir Charles Hardy, serving in the strategic retreat during August 1779. With the allied fleet returning to Spain and France he then sailed under the orders of Rear-Admiral Sir John Lockhart-Ross in September to investigate a rumoured a French invasion force in Cancale Bay, only to find that it did not exist.




    In December the Bienfaisant joined Admiral Sir George Rodney’s fleet which sailed for the relief Gibraltar, and he received the surrender of the Guipuscoana 64 during the capture of a Spanish convoy on 8 January 1780. At the Moonlight battle off Cape St. Vincent on 16 January he engaged the San Domingo 70, which promptly blew up, and in the same action received the surrender of Admiral Langara’s flagship, the Fénix 80. This vessel was sent into Gibraltar under his first lieutenant, Thomas Louis, although MacBride allowed all the Spanish to remain on board at great risk to the loss of his prize because of a smallpox epidemic aboard the Bienfaisant. In turn the Spanish admiral vowed not to attempt the recapture of his ship unless the Bienfaisant herself was captured, and the honourable conduct of both MacBride and Langara under such circumstances was a sign of the times. He was deservedly sent home with Rodney’s despatches, although the duplicates carried by Captain Edward Thompson arrived before him.



    After rejoining the Bienfaisant, MacBride cruised in command of a small squadron off Ireland in the summer of 1780, and having been ordered to seek out the French privateer Comte d’Artois 64, which had been causing a great deal of trouble to the local trade, he met her on 13 August. In an action lasting over an hour the far superior French crew of six hundred men attempting to board but the Bienfaisant’s crew held them off before bombarding their enemy into submission, her colours coming down shortly after the arrival on the scene of the Charon 44, Captain Thomas Symonds. The French suffered fifty-six casualties in this action in return for three British killed and twenty-two wounded. Curiously, in September MacBride captured a smaller privateer by the name of the Comtesse d’Artois .



    In January 1781 he was appointed to recommission the recently captured French frigate Artois 40, which at the time was was considered to be an outstanding vessel, and he fought her at the Battle of the Doggersbank on 5 August. Following the action he temporarily assumed the command of the Princess Amelia 80 in place of the fallen Captain Macartney, this measure being considered necessary in case the Dutch attempted to recommence the action, but after reaching port he returned to the Artois. On 3 December he took two beautiful Dutch 24-gun privateers, the Hercules and Mars, losing one man killed and six wounded whilst inflicting casualties of twenty-two killed and thirty-five wounded. In the next year he was present in Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington’s fleet in the Channel at the capture of two sail of the line, the more famous of which was the Foudroyant’s making a prize of the Pégase 74 on 20 April. He ended the war by undertaking the role of captain of the impress service in Ireland whilst the Artois paraded off the coast under the command of her first lieutenant, or her acting-captain, Edward Pellew.



    Following the peace MacBride commissioned the new Druid 32 in June 1783, in which he cruised in the Irish Channel. After being elected M.P. for Plymouth in 1784 he sat for the next two years on a commission with Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington and Captain Sir John Jervis which investigated the capability of the Plymouth and Portsmouth fortifications, and he shared their low opinion of the results. During the Dutch Armament in 1787 he commissioned the Cumberland 74 at Plymouth, and in 1788 he spoke in parliament against Admiral Lord Howe during the dispute over the yellowing of admirals, thereby playing some part in this officer’s resignation as first lord of the Admiralty on 16 July 1788.



    In 1788 he rejoined the Plymouth guardship Cumberland 74, which was attached to Commodore Samuel Granston Goodall’s squadron of observation in the Channel during 1789 and participated in the Naval Review at Plymouth on 18 August. In 1790 the Cumberland formed part of Admiral Lord Howe’s fleet during the Spanish Armament before going out to the Leeward Islands with Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish’s squadron at the end of the year. She returned home with Cornish in early 1791 and remaining in commission through the Russian Armament that year was paid off in 1792.


    MacBride was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral on 1 February 1793, and nine days later hoisted his flag aboard the frigate Iphigenia 32, Captain Patrick Sinclair, as commander-in-chief in the Downs, later removing it to the Quebec 32, Captain Thomas Louis. He participated in the Channel fleet cruise from 14 July to 10 August 1793 with his flag on the Cumberland 74 with Captain Louis, and after returning to the Quebec, which was now under the command of Captain Josias Rogers, he led a squadron that assisted General Sir Charles Grey in driving the French out of Ostend and Nieuport during October. At various times during this period he also flew his flag aboard the Invincible 74, Captain Hon. Thomas Pakenham and Acting Captain Lawrence Halsted, the Eurydice 24, Captain Francis Cole,the sloop Echo 14, Commander Peter Halkett, and the Sceptre 64, Captain William Essington. On one occasion his squadron was erroneously chased by the British Channel fleet, and during this busy time he also spent a period ashore with a broken leg after falling off his horse.



    At the end of 1793 he was given command of a frigate squadron off Brest with his flag aboard the Flora 36, Captain Sir John Borlase Warren, and in December his ships supported an expedition led by the Earl of Moira with over six thousand men that was intended to assist an uprising by the French Royalists in Brittany and Normandy. On 4 July 1794 he was promoted vice-admiral and placed in command of a squadron in the North Sea with his flag aboard the Minotaur 74, Captain Thomas Louis, and he continued thereafter with his flag later flying in the Russell 74, Captain Thomas Larcom, before retiring towards the end of 1796.



    MacBride was promoted admiral on 14 February 1799, and he died of a paralytic seizure on 17 February 1800 at the Spring Garden Coffee House in London.



    In 1769 at Bishop’s Hull, Taunton, he married Charlotte Anne Harrison, the sixteen year-old daughter of the late Captain Thomas Harrison of Leigham Manor, Eggbuckland, near Plymouth and they soon had a daughter, Charlotte Anne, who would marry the future Admiral Sir Willoughby Thomas Lake*. Macbride’s young wife died in 1771 and he subsequently wedded Ursula Folkes of Hillington Hall, Norfolk, on 14 July 1774. Their son, John David, became a principle of the Magdalene Hall Oxford College. The address in his will was given as Exmouth.



    He was an M.P from 1784 until he lost his seat in 1790, being held in high esteem by Lord Rockingham whilst regarded as an opponent of William Pitt. Lord Sandwich described him as being an ‘exceedingly troublesome, busy, violent man, very bold but with little understanding, reckoned an active officer and much patronised by Keppel.’ MacBride was also described as being a man of ‘blunt manners and rude elegance.’ He spoke regularly and passionately on military matters.



    He was an affable, active officer with immense talents whose untimely death was much regretted. It was notable that in the late 1760’s – early 1770’s he was entrusted with several missions when other captains were beached ashore. His work, a ‘Journal of the Winds and Weather at the Falkland Islands’, was later published, and he was an early patron of the carronade. His Devonshire connections were illustrated by his being a friend of Sir Edward Pellew’s father, and his employment of James Bowen, who served as his sailing-master for much of the 1780’s. His flag lieutenant in the early years of the French Revolutionary War was Willoughby Thomas Lake, who subsequently became his son-in-law. MacBride was a great fan of cock-fighting.




    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

  13. #13
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    Captain Hyde Parker.

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    1739-1807.

    He was born in Devon, the second son of Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, 5th baronet and his wife Sarah Smithson.

    He entered the navy aboard the Vanguard 70 commanded by his father in November 1751, removing with him to the sloop Cruiser and then in 1755 transferring to the Medway 60, Captain Charles Proby. On 25 January 1758 he was commissioned lieutenant of the Brilliant 36, once more serving under the orders of his father, and followed him to the Norfolk 74 with which he went out to the East Indies in 1760. He next joined the Grafton 68 with his father, in which he was present at the reduction of Pondicherry and the expedition to Manilla, transferring thereafter to the Lenox 74, Captain Robert Jocelyn.

    He was promoted commander of the Manila 14 on 16 December 1762 and posted to the Baleine 32 on 18 July 1763, with which he returned from the East Indies to Chatham in August 1764. He afterwards commanded the Hussar 28 in North America under Commodore Samuel Hood, having been appointed to that ship in November 1766, and he retained her until 1770. During the Spanish dispute of late 1770 he was captain of the Boston 32, again serving in North American waters, which vessel was paid off in July 1772.

    In July 1775 he took the Phoenix 44 out to North America, but on the arrival of the rebel army in the spring of the following year he humanely withdrew from New York in order to avoid bloodshed amongst a civilian population with which he had enjoyed good relations. During the New York campaign of July-October 1776 he led a squadron consisting of the Phoenix, Roebuck 44, Tartar 28 and Tryal which drove through the American defences of chevaux de frise, batteries and gunboats in the North River, losing lost nine men killed and eighteen wounded in the process, but capturing a number of small American men of war. After the Phoenix was briefly refitted in Nova Scotia during the summer of 1777, Parker commanded her in the Philadelphia campaign from 25 August, led a squadron of five vessels off Chesapeake Bay in the autumn, and took part in Vice-Admiral Lord Howe’s defence of New York from the French in July 1778 and operations off Rhode Island during August 1778. In early 1779 he led the naval forces in the textbook Savannah Expedition, following which the Phoenix was repaired temporarily in the captured port and then sent home for a complete refit.

    Whilst the Phoenix was undergoing a refit at Plymouth Parker was honoured for his services with a knighthood at St. James’ Palace on 21 April 1779. Continuing in the Phoenix, he escorted the Jamaican trade out from England after leaving Spithead with Admiral Sir George Rodney’s fleet in December 1779, being detached on 4 January 1780 to the West Indies. After embarking on a cruise his command was caught in the Great Hurricanes of October 1780 and driven ashore near Cape Cruz on the island of Cuba. Although some twenty men were washed overboard with the mainmast he got most of his two hundred men to safety, landed the guns, built defences and sent to Jamaica for help. His men finally reached safety at Montego Bay on 15 October, eleven days after being wrecked. Having been most honourably acquitted at the resultant court-martial he returned to England and was ordered to commission the new frigate Latona 38, joining his father in the North Sea and being present but not participating in the Battle of the Dogger bank on 5 August 1781.

    Parker commissioned the brand new Goliath 74 in October 1781, and being attached to the Channel fleet he served in the April-August 1782 campaign with Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington off Ushant, and Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt off Brest. Following the sinking of the Royal George on 29 August 1782 he considered the possibility of raising her, but in the event his plans did not come to fruition. He subsequently took part in the relief of Gibraltar on 18 October and led the van in the action off Cape Spartel where his ship suffered twenty casualties.

    Following the end of hostilities he quelled a mutiny aboard the Goliath during March 1783 when many ships waiting to be paid off displayed mutinous tendencies, and he also presided over a court martial on the mutineers of the Raisonnable 64 later that year. The Goliath served as a guardship, initially in the Medway before being fitted at Chatham for service on the Plymouth station. In October 1783 he went out to Gibraltar to transfer part of the garrison force, and on returning the Goliath saw service as a guardship at Portsmouth until 1786. As a result of the Dutch Armament in the autumn of the following year he was appointed to commission the brand new Orion 74 at Woolwich paying her off in February 1788. During the Spanish Armament of 1790 he commissioned the new Brunswick 74 and in the same year was nominated a colonel of marines as well as commander of the yacht Royal Charlotte at Deptford. When Vice-Admiral Lord Hood was ordered to prepare a fleet during the Russian Armament in 1791 he selected Parker as his captain of the fleet but again hostilities did not ensue.

    Parker was promoted rear-admiral on 1 February 1793 and joined Hood in the Mediterranean as captain of the fleet, being present at the occupation of Toulon from 27 August 1793 and in the operations against Corsica from 8 February 1794. On 4 July 1794 he was promoted vice-admiral, and after briefly flying his flag aboard the Bedford 74, Captain Robert Man, he shifted it to the St. George 98, Captain Thomas Foley. He was third in command to Admiral William Hotham at the Battle of Genoa on 13-14 March 1795, suffering casualties of four men killed and thirteen wounded, and the action of 13 July 1795. From 1 November to 30 November 1795 he briefly commanded the fleet pending the arrival of Hotham’s successor, Admiral Sir John Jervis, and from March 1796 flew his flag in the Britannia 100 with Foley as his flag captain.

    After returning shortly afterwards to England he was despatched in August with a huge 170-sail convoy, four sail of the line including his flagship Queen 98, Captain Man Dobson, and four frigates with instructions to replace Rear-Admiral Robert Man off Cadiz in the blockade of Rear-Admiral Joseph De Richery’s French squadron. Further secret instructions indicated that he should be prepared to pursue any Franco/Spanish breakout to the Caribbean, and having assumed command of Man’s ships as well as those in the Leeward Island and Jamaica he stationed himself off San Domingo. In the event the French squadron had indeed sailed on 28 August 1796, but proceeded to wreak havoc on the Newfoundland station.

    Remaining in the Caribbean with his flag continuing to fly on the Queen, Parker assumed the position of commander-in-chief at Jamaica, although for much of the next year he stationed himself off the strategically superior Cape St. Nicolas Mole at the western end of Santo Domingo, sharing that island with the French and Spanish. His tenure, which lasted until the late summer of 1800, saw the loss of the frigate Hermione 32 on 22 September 1797 and schooner Marie Antoinette to mutiny, but also earned him a fortune estimated at £200,000 in prize money, thanks to the efforts of his prolific cruisers and in particular his favourites, Captains Robert Otway, and the Hermione’s unfortunate Hugh Pigot. It was also alleged that he fitted out a privateer commanded by a certain ‘Antoine’ which was so prolific and un-discerning of the enemy that a group of individuals in Jamaica sent out their own vessel to capture the ship. Antoine was poisoned by his wife to cheat the gallows, but his body was left across the threshold of Parker’s residence, the Pen. Another embarrassment occurred in 1797 when Parker did his best to hush up Pigot’s thrashing of an American merchant captain, an incident which eventually led to diplomatic protests reaching the desk of the King.

    In 1797 he took his small fleet on a cruise to the Gulf of Mexico after news of the Spithead and the Nore mutinies was received, whilst he also took to sea when yellow fever claimed two dozen lives aboard his flagship. On 14 February 1799 he was advanced to the rank of admiral, and in the same year he sent home his second-in-command, Rear-Admiral Richard Rodney Bligh, with whom he had long held an enmity after censuring him for allowing two Hermione mutineers to go free.

    On his return to England aboard the Trent 36, Captain Robert Otway, Parker became second-in-command to the Earl of St. Vincent in the Channel with his flag in the Royal George 100, Captain Otway, commanding the fleet at sea in the winter whilst the old admiral lived ashore at Torre Abbey. In early 1801 he was appointed to command an expeditionary force against the Baltic powers with his flag initially in the Ardent 64, Captain Thomas Bertie, from where it was shifted on 12 March at Yarmouth to the London 98, Captain Robert Otway. His second-in-command was Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson and from the outset there was some friction between the two admirals, fired by the first lord of the admiralty, Earl St. Vincent, who clearly supported Nelson and denigrated Parker, the more so that the latter was about to marry the young daughter of a fellow admiral.

    At the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April Nelson led the assault whilst the cautious Parker remained off shore. Upon observing three out of Nelson’s force of twelve ships drive aground in the early part of the attack Parker was persuaded by the captain of the fleet, William Domett, to signal Nelson’s recall, but at the same time he chivalrously allowed his flag captain, Robert Otway, to row across to Nelson’s’ flagship with the instruction that he could ignore the signal if he saw fit. Following Nelson’s victory and negotiation of an armistice Parker refused to sail further up the Baltic to attack the Russians and the Swedes, being concerned with the security to his supply line. Unsurprisingly he was abruptly recalled by St. Vincent following criticism by Nelson, which was not only a great blow and astonishment to him personally but also to many captains who were unhappy with his dismissal. His passage back to England was aboard the new Blanche 36, Captain Graham Eden Hamond.

    Parker did not serve again and died on 16 March 1807 at Benhall Lodge, Suffolk. He was married twice, to Anne Boteler of Henley, Suffolk, by whom he had three sons, these being Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker, Colonel John Parker, who married a daughter of Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham, and Lieutenant Harry Parker of the Guards, who was killed at the Battle of Talavera. Having been widowed he married Frances, daughter of Admiral Sir Robert Onslow on 23 August 1801, a woman who was then forty-three years his junior, and who reminded Lord St Vincent of ‘batter pudding.’ Parker had two daughters and a son from his second marriage, Charles Parker, who entered the Navy in 1812 under the patronage of his half-brother and was eventually promoted captain. His second wife died in March 1844. Sir Hyde was also a godfather to Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Fremantle’s son.
    Parker was a follower rather than a leader, a good administrator which was a pre-requisite in the West Indian commands, efficient, cautious, brave but somewhat pedantic and ponderous. St. Vincent described him as prosperous, fat and comfortable, and he undoubtedly liked an easy life. He did not scruple to press Negroes or Americans into the service, and Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood described him as being good-tempered and kindly, yet vain, pompous, ignorant, fussy and somewhat stout. He was extremely weak in his management of Captain Hugh Pigot, doing nothing to censure him for his harsh tyrannical treatment of his crew, and he clearly thought the best way to manage his men was through iron discipline, not inspired leadership.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

  14. #14
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    Captain Philip Patton.



    1739-1815. He was born at Anstruther, Fifeshire on 27 October 1739, the eldest son of Philip Patton, a customs collector at Kirkcaldy in Fife, and of his wife Agnes Loch. His younger brother Charles, 1741-1837, was posted captain on 30 May 1795 and superintended the transport department at Plymouth during the Napoleonic War, whilst another brother, Robert 1742-1812, served in the East India Company.

    Following an education at Kirkcaldy grammar school, Patton spent his early years at sea in the merchant service with his ship-owner uncle before joining the Torbay 74, Captain Charles Colby, under the patronage of Vice-Admiral Hon. Edward Boscawen in 1755. He followed this officer to the Invincible 74, Royal George 100 and Namur 90, and was present at the reduction of Louisbourg in 1758. Following Boscawen’s departure he remained with the Namur under Captain William Buckle, and was present at the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1757.

    He passed his lieutenant’s examination on 10 September 1760, and whilst remaining in the Namur served under the flag of Admiral Sir George Pocock at the reduction of Havana. Commissioned on 3 July 1762, he was appointed lieutenant of the bomb-ketch Granado 8, and when her captain, Commander Thomas Fraser, was taken ill shortly after she went aground in the Bay of Honda, Cuba he performed exceptionally well in getting her afloat and sea-worthy. Later that year she returned to England and was paid off.

    From 1764-7 Patton was aboard the frigate Emerald 28, Captains John Knight and Charles Douglas, serving in the North Sea, in the Channel and off the Scottish islands. During 1769-72 he was again with the Emerald under Captain Douglas who undertook a mission to the North Cape to view the transit of Venus. Thereafter he remained with the frigate as she was successively commanded by Captains John Moutray and Hugh Dalrymple, operating in the Shetlands and Orkneys, and paying her off within the latter year as her first lieutenant.

    In 1776 he was appointed to the Spithead-based Prince George 90, Captain Charles Middleton, and he subsequently followed this officer to the Royal Oak 74. In the spring of 1778 this ship became the designated flagship of Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker, who was bound for North America as second-in-command to Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron. Fortunately, although Patton was due to be superseded as her first lieutenant by a follower of the new admiral, he was promoted on the occasion of the King’s review of the fleet at Spithead with seniority from 9 May 1778, as were all the other flagship first lieutenants.

    Initially given command of the newly commissioned bomb Aetna 8, he shortly afterwards became acting-captain of the Prince George 90 in the absence of Captain Sir John Lindsay, who was required to give evidence at the court-martial of Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel following the Battle of Ushant. The Prince George formed part of Vice-Admiral Lord Shuldham’s squadron which soon put to sea, but on 16 January 1779 Patton had to subdue a mutiny which arose over the seemingly trivial matter of the men’s hammocks being brought up on deck to provide ventilation in the areas below. After one mutineer was severely dealt with the disturbance soon subsided and the men came to accept their acting-captain. The fleet soon returned to Spithead in March and Sir John Lindsay resumed command.

    Patton next moved into the sloop Thorn, and on 22 March 1779 was posted to the Namur 90, flagship of Rear-Admiral Hon. Robert Digby, who he then followed to the Prince George once more. He took part in the Channel fleet’s retreat of August 1779, and the Moonlight Battle of 16 January 1780 where he captured the San Julian 74, although she sank near Cadiz shortly afterwards. Following the return of the fleet to Spithead he fell out with Rear-Admiral Digby and left his post.

    Although he soon joined the frigate Milford 28, she proved unfit for service and instead he was appointed to commission the French prize Belle Poule 36, with William Bligh as his sailing master. In this ship, with the help of the Berwick 74, Commodore Hon. Keith Stewart and Captain John Ferguson, he captured the notorious Irish privateer commander Luke Ryan aboard the French frigate Calonne 32. Having joined Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker’s fleet in good time to participate in the Battle of the Dogger bank on 5 August 1781, he then sat on the court-martial of Ryan who was sentenced to hang, but escaped death on the request of France at the peace. Patton re-joined the Belle Poule, which had been commanded in the interim by Captain William Fairfax, and was engaged in convoy duty until she was laid up at Chatham in November 1782. He thereafter remained unemployed for the next dozen years.

    In May 1794 he became a commissioner of the Transport Board in which role he acquitted himself so well that he became indispensable to the first lord of the Admiralty, Lord Chatham. Somewhat unfairly he was advised that if he accepted flag rank he would not be employed afloat, and having been promoted rear-admiral on 1 June 1795 he entered semi-retirement at his home in Fareham. With some foresight he submitted a report to the Admiralty supporting better conditions for the seamen, and correctly predicting the mutinies of 1797.

    On 1 January 1801 Patton was promoted vice-admiral and following the change of government was commander-in-chief in the Downs and second in command of the Home Fleet to Admiral Lord Keith from 1803. Flying his flag in the Utrecht 64, Captain John Wentworth Loring, he met the acquaintance of William Pitt who was then residing at Walmer Castle and in so doing earned a favourable opinion which resulted in his becoming a lord of the Admiralty on Pitt’s return to office in 1803. He served in this capacity for the next three years, and following Pitt’s death retired once more to Fareham. He was promoted admiral on 9 November 1805 and created a stir by writing a pamphlet to the effect that all first lords of the admiralty should be service personnel.

    During his retirement Patton had become increasingly death and blind, although a successful operation obviated the latter condition. He died at Fareham on 31 December 1815, his funeral being well attended by the warrant officers of the fleet, whose cause he had promoted throughout his life.

    In 1783 Patton married Elizabeth, the daughter of John Dixon, and had issue six daughters and a son. His second daughter, Anna, married Admiral Sir John Wentworth Loring, and his third daughter, Elizabeth, married the future Rear-Admiral Edward Down in 1813, which officer had earlier been his flag lieutenant. His nephew Robert Patton, the son of Charles, entered the service on his flagship in 1804 and was promoted captain in 1827.

    Highly regarded and respected, Patton was a thorough student of French and Latin, and a keen poet and scientist. He was of medium stature, generous and amiable, and was ever kind to his men who returned his affection for them. He detested the Impress Service for the way it bred mutinies in the service. The Earl of St. Vincent christened him ‘a dull dog’ for his collusion with Admiral Lord Barham in the changes to the signal codes, whilst Admiral Markham described him as a ‘plain, honest man.’
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain the Hon. George Murray.



    1741-97. He was born on 22 August 1741, the fourth and youngest son of Lord George Murray, who was a general serving Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1745 rebellion, and of his wife, Amelia Murray. His father escaped abroad in 1746 and never returned to his homeland, eventually dying in the Netherlands in 1760. Murray’s elder brother became the 3rd Duke of Atholl.

    Having been educated at Kew and the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth, Murray entered the navy in 1758 and was commissioned lieutenant on 14 October 1762.

    He was promoted commander on 20 June 1765, and was employed aboard the Ferret 14 at Jamaica for the next three years. Having been posted captain of the Renown 30 on the Jamaican station on 26 May 1768, he exchanged into the Adventure 32 with Captain Thomas Fitzherbert in the following year, returning home to be paid off in January 1770.

    Murray commanded the Levant 28 in the Mediterranean during 1774, and he brought her home the following year before going back to the same station where he captured the American vessel General Montgomery 14 on 9 March 1777. Whilst on a cruise off Portugal in June he took the rebel privateer Vigilant 14 and a prize brig she had in company, one of many such captures that earned him a good deal of prize money. He later served in the Channel and North Sea until 1779, during which year he took the privateer Revanche on 17 July prior to being paid off in October.

    Murray did not remain unemployed for long, as he commissioned the new Cleopatra 32 in the following month and was employed off the Shetlands and in the Western squadron. This vessel was a distant witness to the action between the Apollo 32, Captain Philemon Pownall, and the Stanislaus 26 off Ostend on 15 June 1780, during which engagement Murray’s fellow captain lost his life. After capturing the privateer Comtesse de Provence in the North Sea on 11 November 1780 he conveyed the Baltic trade in 1781, and was present at the Battle of the Dogger bank on 5 August.

    From 1783-6 Murray was in command of the guardship Irresistible 74 with the broad pennant of Commodore George Bowyer in the Medway, and during the Spanish Armament of 1790 he commanded the Defence 74 from the end of August until mid- December. He subsequently served as the commander-in-chief in the Medway during 1792-3, being based at Chatham.

    Upon the commencement of war with France in 1793 Murray joined Rear-Admiral Alan Gardner’s expedition to the Leeward Islands in March, flying a broad pennant aboard the Duke 98, Captain George Duff, and serving in the unsuccessful attack on Martinique where his command’s mainmast was struck by lightning. He returned to England shortly afterwards to be employed in the Channel aboard the Glory 98, Captain Francis Pender.

    He was advanced to flag rank on 12 April 1794, and with his flag aboard the Resolution 74, Captains Francis Pender, went out to Halifax, Nova Scotia, as commander-in-chief in the following month. In August 1795 Pender temporarily assumed the role of commissioner at Bermuda and was replaced as flag-captain aboard the Resolution by Captain Charles Penrose.

    Murray returned to England aboard the Cleopatra 32, Captain Penrose, towards the end of 1796 in a state of paralysis from a stroke from which he would never recover. He died on 17 October 1797.

    On 13 May 1784 Murray married Wilhelmina King, the daughter of Thomas 5th Lord King, but they had no issue.
    Murray was the M.P. for Perth Burghs from 1790 until March 1796 in the Tory interest. He was a patron of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Vinicombe Penrose who was a welcome visitor at the Murray family seat, Blair Castle in Athol. His address was given as Pitkeathly, Perth, Scotland.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Lt.Peter Rivett.





    Nationality British
    Roles Naval Sailor
    First Known Service26.10.1777
    Last Known Service14.4.1778
    Date of Death8.1782

    Event History

    Date from
    Date to
    Event



    26.10.1777 Lieutenant ADM 6/21/367
    6.1780 9.1781 Surprize (10), Lieutenant and Commanding Officer
    5.8.1781 Battle of Dogger Bank
    23.8.1781 Commander
    9.1781 8.1782 Duc d'Estissac (18), Commander and Commanding Officer
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Dutch (Zoutman)

    Ships in the line:

    Erfprins 54 (Braak)

    Admiraal Generaal 74 (van Kinsbergen)

    Argo 40 (Staring)

    Batavier 54 (Bentinck)

    Admiraal de Ruijter 68 (Staringh., Zoutman's flag)

    Admiraal Piet Hein 54 (van Braam)

    Hollandia 68 (Dedel) (later sunk)

    Other vessels:

    Bellona (frigate 36, Docker)

    Dolfijn (or Dolphijn; frigate 24, Mulder)

    Ajax (cutter 20, van Welderen)

    Eensgezindheit (frigate 36, Boritius)

    Zephijr (frigate 36, Wiertz)

    Amphitrite (frigate 36, von Woensel)
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Admiral Johan Arnold Zoutman.


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    (10 May 1724, Reeuwijk – 7 May 1793, The Hague)

    He was a Dutch naval figure and Rear Admiral who fought at the Battle of Dogger Bank in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. Zoutman also fought in the American Revolutionary War.
    Legacy.

    In 1798, Fort Zoutman was built in his name at Oranjestad and is the oldest Dutch structure on the island of Aruba. The Willem III Tower was built at the west entrance of the fort in 1868 and has functioned as a clock tower, lighthouse and a station for the Aruba Police Force. The fort now houses the Aruba Historical Museum.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Captain Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen .

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    (1 May 1735 – 24 May 1819).



    Known as Count of Doggersbank, Kinsbergen was a Dutch naval officer. Having had a good scientific education, Van Kinsbergen was a proponent of fleet modernization and wrote many books about naval organization, discipline and tactics.

    In 1773, he twice defeated an Ottoman fleet while in Russian service. Returning to the Dutch Republic in 1775, he became a Dutch naval hero in 1781, fighting the Royal Navy, and gradually attained the position of commander-in-chief as a lieutenant-admiral. When France conquered the Republic in 1795 he was fired by the new revolutionary regime and prevented from becoming Danish commander-in-chief, but the Kingdom of Holland reinstated him in 1806, in the rank of fleet marshal, and made him a count. He was again degraded by the French Empire in 1810; after the liberation the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1814 honoured him with his old rank of lieutenant-admiral.


    Early career.



    Van Kinsbergen was born in Doesburg as the eldest son of the non-commissioned officer Johann Henrich van Kinsbergen, who had been born in Netphen, Germany, in 1706, started his military career in Austrian service, and originally spelled his family name as "Ginsberg". When he was six, he moved with his parents in 1741 to Elburg. Three years later he left with his father for the Southern Netherlands and at the age of nine enlisted as a soldier of the Dutch field army during the War of the Austrian Succession, returning in 1748. Reading the biography of Gerard Brandt about the life of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, he decided to become a naval hero as well and went to the naval academy of Groningen, where he was trained as an engineer between 1751 and 1755. In 1756, he became a midshipman on the Weststellingerwerf and on 16 March 1758 a lieutenant, in the Admiralty of Amsterdam, on the Maarssen.

    Russian service.



    In the late 1760s, due to severe financial difficulties, few Dutch ships were active and Van Kinsbergen used his free time to write a large series of publications about naval modernisation. He is seen as a typical example of the new generation of Dutch naval officers of the era who longer owed their position to either a merchant fleet career or a noble background but to a thorough scientific education.



    In 1769, Van Kinsbergen despaired of ever being promoted and obtained leave to enter the service of the VOC and depart for the Dutch Indies for four years. However, in the previous years he had already established a minor international reputation as a naval thinker, enthusiastically corresponding with many influential foreign contacts. He was informed by Prince Henry of Prussia that due to the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) the Russian navy was in search of naval experts. Henry immediately could obtain him a position there. On 15 August 1770, Van Kinsbergen got permission from the Dutch admiral-general, stadholder William V, Prince of Orange, to depart for Russia. However, William V would not free him completely from his obligations. Van Kinsbergen was promised that one year later, on 15 August 1771, he would in his absence be appointed captain. In exchange again three years after that date he would return to the fatherland should it have need of his services and this cycle of temporary appointments would be repeated every three years.



    In the summer of 1771, Jan Hendrik travelled via Berlin, where he visited Prince Henry, to Saint Petersburg where he on 29 September was appointed acting captain in the Imperial Russian Navy; on 2 October he was promoted to captain second class. He immediately left for the Black Sea; on arrival he was charged with commanding a troop of cossacks and fought, meanwhile learning Russian, on land during the winter campaign. In a fight he was shot through the knee and saved from under a heap of corpses by a cossack, whom he would later get an appointment at the Amsterdam naval wharf.

    From 9 February 1772 at Iaşi he repaired river vessels captured from the Turkish Danube fleet. On 12 June he got his first naval command in Russian service, bringing dispatches on a galiot to Azov. From 13 November he brought dispatches from the southern army to Saint Petersburg. He was on that occasion introduced to the empress and made a favourable impression on her with his enthusiastic plans for the Black Sea fleet. Accordingly, on 23 April 1773 he became flotilla-commander in the Black Sea. His force was rather insignificant consisting of just two ketches of twelve cannon each and two yachts. Van Kinsbergen decided nevertheless that the moment had arrived to make a name for himself and acted as aggressively as his limited powers allowed. He entered the Sea of Marmara through the Bosporus, charted it as the first Western European ever, then entered the Dardanelles and finally returned to the Black Sea after duelling with a coastal fortress of Istanbul.

    Twice that year he defeated a Turkish fleet and won the title 'Hero of the Black Sea'. On 23 June, he encountered a Turkish flotilla of three frigates of 52 cannon and a ship-of-the-line of 75 and despite the disparity in firepower at once attacked it and wiped it out, the first major "Christian" naval victory in the Black Sea in four centuries. His superiors were very pleased and gave him permission to raid Sinope, but this was soon changed into a mission to intercept a transport fleet headed for the Crimea. In the morning of 2 September he spotted the enemy fleet off Novorossiysk but at the same time a messenger brought him the order to abandon the attack in view of the force imbalance: Van Kinsbergen's original two ketches had only been reinforced by a single frigate of 32 cannon and a fireship, while the Turkish fleet numbered four ships-of-the-line, seven frigates and six transports with five thousand men infantry. Determined to give battle anyway, van Kinsbergen declared in front of his officers that such an order could not possibly be authentic, arrested the messenger and pursued the attack. Conforming to the standard tactics of the day, the Turkish fleet sailed in a formal line-of-battle. Van Kinsbergen realized that doing likewise would only result in the quick annihilation of his flotilla and therefore applied a modern concentration of forces: using the weather gauge he frontally attacked the leading Turkish vessel, causing the following Turkish ships to break formation. During the ensuing melee the Turkish fleet got so damaged and confused that it abandoned the landing attempt and withdrew. Van Kinsbergen's insubordination was soon forgiven and he was on 22 September rewarded with the Order of St. George, be it only in the fourth degree, which rather disappointed him.

    After the war, Van Kinsbergen feared he would not be promoted and in November 1774 obtained a temporary discharge from Russian service. Although Catherine the Great would gladly have kept him on in the Russian navy, promoted him to captain first class and knight in the third degree (from 1776 even second degree) he asked to be accepted into Dutch service in May 1775, from August travelled via Saint Petersburg and Berlin to the Republic, obtained a final honourable discharge from Russian service in December, and early 1776 was back in the service of the Dutch.

    Return to the Dutch Republic.

    In 1776 Van Kinsbergen was readmitted into the Admiralty of Amsterdam as a full captain, which raised quite a few eyebrows as the deal with stadtholder William had been kept a secret. In this period tensions between the United Kingdom and the Dutch Republic, caused by the American Revolution, led to Dutch efforts to build up the fleet and therefore to increased career opportunities for Dutch officers.



    From 17 May 1776 Van Kinsbergen was sent on an international expedition, as captain of the Amphitrite, against Morocco to enforce a treaty upon Mohammed ben Abdallah to limit the privateering activities of the Barbary corsairs; on 27 June he was as an envoy present at the signing of the treaty at Salé, returning to the Republic in October. In 1778 he was captain of the frigate Argo; in October he went again to Salé to deliver the treaty document ratified by the States-General of the Netherlands. After returning he and his Argo were part of the convoy temporarily detained by a superior British fleet on 31 December 1779 in search of contraband for France, the Affair of Fielding and Bylandt. The Dutch populace was outraged by this event, refusing to further cooperate with measures directed at blockading America and war with Britain became inevitable, even though the Dutch were ill-prepared for it. In 1780 Van Kinbergen became a member of a commission that should strengthen the Dutch coastal defences. Meanwhile, he had published a great number of articles and booklets regarding naval reorganisation; in 1780 his Sailor's Compendium appeared, written with cooperation of the religious author Joannes Florentius Martinet and aimed at improving discipline. Officers should themselves be an exemplary role model and abstain from gambling, boozing, whoring and swearing — except in the latter case when giving orders, as in Van Kinsbergen's experience they tended to be followed much better if containing a few curses.

    Late Republican navy.

    Early 1781, the British started a series of surprise attacks on Dutch ships and colonies and thereby the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. The inferior Dutch home fleet mostly avoided a direct confrontation but Van Kinsbergen, on 12 February having been appointed temporary rear-admiral, played an important role in the only major naval fight of the war, the Battle of Dogger Bank, as flotilla commander, second in command to Rear-Admiral Johan Zoutman. Van Kinsbergen on the Admiraal-Generaal escorted a merchant convoy when he by accident encountered a British squadron superior in firepower and managed to beat off all attacks. The Dutch were jubilant and Van Kinsbergen acquired the status of naval hero. He was honoured by stadholder William V by being awarded a special Dogger Bank Medal, as the Dutch Republic had no honorary military orders. William was in need of a popular figurehead to bolster his regime and on 14 August 1781 appointed Van Kinsbergen as his adjutant-general and used him as his permanent naval advisor.



    This way van Kinsbergen soon became the de facto supreme naval commander and also gained a wider political influence, having regular talks with the Orangist leaders on how best to counter the Patriots. On 10 May 1782 he also became a major, commanding a newly raised marine unit. The same year he published general instructions regarding the naval service and a Fundamentals of Naval Tactics, that would be translated into Russian in 1792. In October he commanded a squadron headed for Norway to escort a VOC return fleet; in his absence he was on 10 October appointed a member of the new Secret Council for Naval Affairs.



    In 1783, wearied by the endless criticism of the Dutch naval policy, he considered to return to Russian service but was persuaded by the stadtholder to remain. In 1784 and 1785 he went to the Mediterranean on the Jupiter, partly to deter a possible attack from Venice. At Toulon he received the news that an investigating commission had concluded that he was to blame for the so-called "Brest affair", the failure of the attempt in the summer of 1782 to form a combined Spanish-French-Dutch fleet in the English Channel. In reaction he sent his resignation to William, but again the stadtholder managed to change his admiral's mind. In February 1786 he returned with part of his squadron. On 23 July 1786 he married for the first time, with Hester Hooft, the very wealthy daughter of an Amsterdam burgomaster and widow of schepen George Clifford IV.

    In 1787 the relationship with the stadtholder became strained when the latter used a Prussian military intervention to repress the Patriots. Van Kinsbergen's house in Amsterdam was even searched by soldiers for evidence of secret dealings with William's enemies, though nothing more incriminating was found than some sabres and pistols. At that time Van Kinsbergen had already left the Republic however: he was on a honeymoon in Germany, being received in Vienna by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Again, envoys of Catharina tried to make him re-enter Russian service, offering him the rank of vice-admiral and the command of the Black Sea fleet, but after some consideration he refused in March 1788, even though the stadtholder had consented to a change of service in February. On 8 April 1789 he also refused to become Danish commander-in-chief; on 16 December he was appointed Dutch vice-admiral. In 1790 he commanded an auxiliary squadron, joining the English fleet for a possible conflict with Spain. In 1791 and 1792, revolutionary France attacked the Republic and Van Kinsbergen stayed on land, writing a number of publications. On 3 March 1793, he became admiral-commander-in-chief of the Hollandic and Zealandic fleet and commander of the naval-artillery corps, in the summer beating off a French invasion attempt to cross the Hollands Diep. On 11 August 1793 he was appointed lieutenant-admiral. In 1794 the allied Rhine defences collapsed and the French could in early 1795 march unopposed over the frozen Dutch Water Line, bringing the Patriots to power.

    In disgrace with the Batavian Republic.

    On 17 January 1795 at Scheveningen he took leave from the departing stadtholder, who fled for England, never to return. In the absence of the admiral-general Van Kinbergen was now supreme commander; England apparently being the new enemy he took measures to prevent Dutch ships and ports falling into English hands. On 29 January and again on 9 February he bade the States-General to be relieved from his duty. However, these themselves were at this moment being replaced by a new revolutionary regime, instated by the French: The Batavian Republic. On 24 February he was arrested on orders of the Provisional Representatives of the province of Holland, revolutionaries who had appointed themselves as a provisional government. Soon he was again released, only to be casheered together with the entire naval officer corps on 27 February. Although some urged him to ask the new regime to be reinstated, Van Kinsbergen, confused and depressed, simply did not bother. On 26 April his wife died and in June he accepted a Danish offer to become vice-admiral and commander-in-chief. However, the revolutionary regime refused to give him permission to leave the country and in 1796 pressured Denmark to withdraw his appointment, though he nominally stayed in Danish service until 1806.

    In 1796 Van Kinsbergen returned to the old house of his deceased parents in Elburg, dedicating his life to philanthropy. He created a naval academy in Elburg and an orphanage in Apeldoorn; in 1799 for his health he moved to an estate near the latter town, Welgelegen, a former property of a deceased younger brother. Gradually the Batavian Republic, in need of popular men to legitimise its power, began to make overtures to Van Kinsbergen: in 1797 it was suggested he become supreme commander; in 1801 even a formal offer was made. This failed however because he demanded that all officers be reinstated. Early 1806 Grand Pensionary Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, a man well acquainted to him, made a personal and emotional appeal, but the admiral again refused.

    Kingdom of Holland.



    However, in the summer of 1806, on orders of Emperor Napoleon I the Kingdom of Holland was created and his brother, the new King Louis Bonaparte, on 16 July appointed Van Kinsbergen member of the Dutch Council of State and First Chamberlain — and these were only the first of a long list of honours bestowed on the old admiral: e.g. on 26 December he was made marshal, on 15 May 1808 Marshal of the Hollandic Naval Forces and on 4 February 1810, when on French orders all Dutch marshals had to be degraded, he was appointed full admiral. On 4 May 1810 he was made Count of the Dogger Bank. On 11 October 1808 Alexander I of Russia had awarded him the star of the Order of St. Andrew which entailed the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, the Order of the White Eagle, the Order of St. Anne, first degree, and the Order of St. Stanislaus.

    In 1810 though, the Kingdom of Holland was annexed by the French Empire and Van Kinsbergen was degraded to a French vice-admiral. However, on 18 December 1810 he was made a French count and on 2 January 1811 appointed French senator. Van Kinsbergen wrote to Napoleon on 11 January that he was too old to move to Paris — knowing quite well the emperor had not intended him to — and asked that his salary might be redirected to the navy, causing an annoyed Napoleon to react: "Does this proud Holland sailor think he can use me to dole out his alms?". Meanwhile, Van Kinsbergen continued his charitable works: e.g. in 1811 he donated a fire engine to the municipality of Elburg.



    The Kingdom of the Netherlands.



    Late 1813 cossacks liberated the territory of the Northern Netherlands; Van Kinsbergen used his knowledge of Russian to negotiate an armistice between the French forces occupying Het Loo and the Russian troops, preventing that this later royal palace was plundered. Also he raised two regiments of Dutch volunteers to besiege the French garrison holding out in Deventer. On 28 March 1814 he was appointed one of the six hundred electors to approve the new Dutch Constitution. On 12 June 1814, he was appointed by the new sovereign prince, William VI of Orange, titular lieutenant-admiral and on 11 July a full lieutenant-admiral: in the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands this was to be a purely honorary rank, bestowed for great merit, in the case of Van Kinsbergen for his "excellent merits and constant Patriotism". In 1815 he became, on 8 July, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of William.
    On 20 November 1816 van Kinsbergen received the royal writ by the new King William I of the Netherlands that he was promoted to jonkheer.



    He died three years later shortly after his 84th birthday at Apeldoorn, from a chronic lung disease, where he was buried on 27 May.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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    Jacob Pieter van Braam.

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    (Werkhoven, 27 October 1737 – Zwolle, 16 July 1803) was a Dutch admiral.


    Van Braam joined the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1748 as a midshipman. In 1751 he was captured by Barbary corsairs and would be a slave until 1753. On 25 February 1753 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1758 to lieutenant-commander.


    In 1764 he made the transition to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) where he was promoted to captain on 14 July 1766. From 1767 till 1773 he was provisions master in Bengal. In 1776 he temporarily left the VOC to become a Dutch post-captain; in 1782 he was in the rank of captain.

    In 1783 he was appointed commander of the VOC, commodore and member of the raad van Indië (Council of India; the governing council of the VOC colonial empire). From 1784 till 1786 he served as vlootvoogd (fleetguardian; admiral in charge of a fleet) in the Indian waters with four ships of the line and two frigates. In this function he was responsible for ending a siege of Malacca City by Riau troops and conquering Selangor.


    In 1786 he returned to the Netherlands and once again joined the admiralty. On 12 June 1788 he was appointed schout-bij-nacht. On 10 May 1793 Van Braam was appointed vice admiral with the Admiralty of Amsterdam, and he retired on 27 February 1795.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

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