John Goodwin Gregory Peyton (1752-1809)

Peyton’s short career was punctuated by periods of sickness and unemployment, with the high point undoubtedly his participation as one of Nelson’s ‘Band of Brothers’ at the Battle of the Nile, where his ship, the Defence, fought and defeated two opponents.

Born on 27 September 1752 at Wakehurst near Ardingly in Sussex, he was the second of five surviving sons of Admiral Joseph Peyton and of his wife, Katherine Strutt, the daughter of a naval commander. This was a naval family: John was the grandson of Commodore Edward Peyton, the brother of Rear-Admiral Joseph Peyton and Captain Thomas Peyton, and the uncle of Commodore Sir John Strutt Peyton.

In 1766 he appears to have entered the Navy aboard the Plymouth guardship Belleisle 64, commanded by his father, and he was commissioned lieutenant at the age of 19 on 10 February 1772. In the American Revolutionary War, he served with his father aboard the Cumberland 74 and fought in that ship at the Moonlight Battle off Cape St. Vincent on 16 January 1780.

The Battle of the Nile 1798

He was promoted commander at the age of 29 on 27 March 1782 and joined the sloop Kite 10, serving out of the Downs. On 14 July while cruising between Ostend and Dunkirk, his vessel captured the French cutter privateer Fantastique 10; otherwise, the Kite was engaged in convoy duty. As the American Revolutionary War drew to a close, he was posted captain (21 January 1783), being appointed to the Carnatic 74 at Woolwich Dockyard, although this appears to have been for purposes of rank only, as the newly built vessel had yet to be commissioned.

Peyton remained unemployed throughout the ensuing ten years of peace, and it was some sixteen months into the French Revolutionary War before he was appointed to the new frigate Seahorse 38, joining her in July 1794 whilst she was fitting out at Deptford. Teething problems dogged her first few months, and in November she lost her rudder after striking ground near Flushing through the ignorance of her Dutch pilot. Based at Cork from May 1795 she cruised with several other frigates, taking a Dutch East Indiaman on 29 August. Continuing on the Irish station with the occasional visit to Plymouth, in March 1796 she sailed with several men-of-war to escort the West Indies convoy to a safe latitude, and after a further cruise out of Cork, Peyton left the frigate in the early summer.

A further two years were spent on the beach before he departed England on 9 April 1798 aboard Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson’s flagship Vanguard 74, Captain Edward Berry, in order to replace the sickly Captain William Brown aboard the thirty-five-year-old Defence 74 in the Mediterranean Fleet. No sooner had he joined her in June than Peyton contracted the same sickness that had afflicted the worn-out crew, believed to have been a result of extreme fatigue and ‘alternate exposure to sun and dews’ when watering at Syracuse in Sicily. Peyton wished to return home when the fleet reached a suitable port, but apparently felt well enough to keep command of his ship during the intense period when Nelson tried to find the elusive French fleet in the eastern Mediterranean.

At the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798, the Defence was eighth in line, one of the ships that followed the example of Nelson’s Vanguard, attacking the French on the seaward side of their line. Peyton and his crew engaged the Peuple Souverain 74, risking damage from Saumarez’s ship Oroion 74, which was firing on the same ship from the landward side. After three hours of battering, the dismasted French ship drifted out of the line, leaving a gap that allowed her opponents to bring other French ships under a destructive fire. Peyton then manoeuvred the Defence to attack the next enemy vessel in line, the already damaged Franklin 80. Towards the end of the battle the Franklin surrendered to the Defence, and a small group of British sailors from the ship boarded to take control of the prize. The Defence’s casualties were comparatively light — four men killed and eleven wounded, but her rigging was much cut up and she lost a topmast.

On 14 September 1798 the Defence reached Gibraltar (having towed her prize on the way), allowing her to effect badly-needed repairs. Two months later Peyton’s wish to resign the command was granted. He returned home as a passenger aboard the Colossus 74, but on the way he was unfortunate enough to have been shipwrecked in the Scilly Isles on 10 December, but survived the incident unscathed along with almost everybody else aboard.

Peyton was not a member of Nelson’s inner circle of captains, which included men such as Troubridge, Hood and Ball. Nevertheless a few months after his return to Britain following the Battle of the Nile, Nelson wrote him a friendly letter, indicating that under the circumstances he had made the right choice to go home, and apologising that he (Nelson) had not been able to do more for the captain. In another indication of his regard, Nelson took Peyton’s nephew, John Strutt Peyton, aboard several of his flagships as a midshipman. Strangely, Peyton is said to have owned a nude painting of Emma Hamilton, Nelson’s mistress, probably created some years before when she was a famous courtesan.

In early February 1799 he attended a levee where he was awarded the Captain’s Gold Medal by the King, but despite a request for re-employment at the turn of the 19th century, he did not go to sea again. Instead, Peyton retired to Lymington, Hampshire where he bought a substantial residence (Priestlands) and became a justice of the peace for Southampton. On 4 April 1793 at St. Marylebone, Westminster, Peyton had married the 33-year-old widow of a clergyman, Susanna Gunnell, but the couple had no children. From May 1804 until he was created a rear-admiral on 9 November 1805 he commanded the Poole Sea Fencibles, overseeing a district that extended from Calshot Castle to Swanage.

Rear-Admiral John Peyton died on 2 August 1809, 11 years and one day after the battle that had been the highlight of his career.