Sir Alexander John Ball (1756-1809)

One of Nelson’s favourites among the ‘Band of Brothers’, Ball fought tenaciously at the Battle of the Nile and shortly afterwards assumed command of the blockade of Malta. During the long siege, he became beloved by the inhabitants of the island, and later was appointed Malta’s governor.

He was born on 22 July 1757 at Stonehouse Court, Stroud , the fourth and youngest son of a long-established and wealthy land-owning Gloucestershire family. His father, Robert Ball, had been high sheriff of the county, and his maternal grandfather, Marshe Dickinson, had been an MP and Lord Mayor of London in 1756.

Following an education at the Market School House in Stroud, Ball joined the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth in 1769 after his father had died and the family finances had failed. He entered the Navy in 1772 and served aboard the Pearl 32, Captain James Bremer. When this vessel was paid off in January 1773, he found employment aboard the Nautilus 16, Commander James Howell Jones, and then the Preston 50, Captain John Robinson, which saw duty in North America over the next couple of years. He later served aboard the Plymouth guardship Egmont 74, Captain John Elphinstone, transferring in July 1778 with that officer to the Magnificent 74 in the Grand Fleet. However, when the fleet fought the Battle of Ushant in late July, the Magnificent was not present .

Sir Alexander Ball

On 7 August 1778, aged 22, he was commissioned lieutenant of the sloop Atalanta 16, Commander Thomas Marshall. Initially the Atalanta was employed in the North Sea before going out to the Guinea coast in March 1779, returning with a convoy in October to perform further service in home waters. Ball next joined the Santa Monica 36, Captain John Linzee, in August 1780, sailing for the West Indies in December. In April 1781 he made a promising move when he transferred to the Sandwich 90, Captain Walter Young, bearing the flag of Admiral Sir George Rodney. Lieutenants on flagships were well placed to benefit from any promotions that become available in the fleet. In August Ball followed the commander-in-chief into the Gibraltar 80, Captain John Symons, for a passage back to England. The following year he returned to the West Indies with Captain Symons aboard Rodney’s new flagship, the Formidable 90, and he fought at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782. The Formidable suffered 15 dead and about 40 wounded in the battle, but Ball survived unscathed.

Though he was only the fifth lieutenant on the Formidable, two days after the Battle of the Saintes, Rodney promoted Ball to be commander of the Germaine 14, indicating he was favoured by the commander of the fleet. Over the next year the sloop served in the Leeward Islands and on the coast of North America, visiting Charleston and New York. On 20 March 1783 Rodney’s successor, Admiral Hugh Pigot, posted Ball as captain of the Argo 44. However, he appears to have left her within a matter of weeks and returned to England.

During the peace that followed the end of the American Revolutionary War, Ball lived in France for a year to learn French while saving money, since the cost of living was cheaper there than in England. He was at St. Omer at the same time as Captain Horatio Nelson, although due to a trivial social dispute they did not meet. Nelson was not impressed on hearing that Ball wore epaulettes, calling him ‘a great coxcomb’. These accessories were a French innovation not introduced to the Royal Navy uniform until ten years later. Back from France, on 7 July 1785 Ball married Mary Smith of Westminster and the couple were to have one son who was named William Keith in apparent homage to the Scottish family of Ball’s previous captain, John Elphinstone.

In July 1790, after some years on half-pay in Gloucestershire, Ball was appointed to command the Nemesis 28 at Deptford, a frigate brought into service as a result of the Spanish Armament. Because of the difficulty in finding seamen, she was manned by disaffected Irishmen and gaolbirds, but he nevertheless moulded them into a well-disciplined crew. The Nemesis served in the Downs right through the Russian Armament in 1791, paying off late in that year.

In January 1793 as the French Revolutionary War was about to begin, Ball was appointed to the frigate Cleopatra 32. Two months later his ship helped transport the army to the Netherlands, before taking a convoy from the Downs to Portsmouth in April. She took convoys to the Baltic from Great Yarmouth, and to Ostend in support of the army, before sailing for Newfoundland in September. By January 1794 she was at Lisbon, returning to Portsmouth with a convoy in early February.

After docking in May 1794, the Cleopatra sailed for Nova Scotia with Rear-Admiral Hon. George Murray’s squadron. In July she gave chase (in company with the Africa 64, Captain Roddam Home), to a frigate and two corvettes that had been escorting a French convoy of thirty vessels out of the Delaware River. The French men-of-war disappeared into the dark of night, but in the meantime the British squadron swept up the merchantmen.

In late 1794 Ball moved to the French-built Argonaut 64 on the North American station which, together with the Oiseau 36, Captain Robert Murray, captured the French corvette Espérance 22 off the Chesapeake on 8 January 1795. This vessel had the strange distinction of having been captured and recaptured four times, serving in three different navies between 1793 and 1795. During her time on the American coast, the crew of the Argonaut also benefitted from the capture of several other lucrative prizes. By May 1796 she was at Jamaica where she ran a 14-gun privateer, the Vainqueur, ashore, burned her, and retook that vessel’s prize. The Argonaut returned to Portsmouth at the end of August to be paid off two months later.

In October 1796 Ball was temporarily appointed to the Powerful 74, but her permanent captain, William O’Brien Drury, soon resumed the command. In early 1797 he was appointed to command the Alexander 74, currently on her way to the Tagus to reinforce Sir John Jervis’ fleet watching the Spanish in Cadiz. Ball followed, taking passage in the Hind 28, Captain John Bazeley, to reach his new command at Oporto a couple of weeks later. His ship was now employed in the Mediterranean Fleet’s blockade of Cadiz, and she was dispatched in April to Tangiers to purchase cattle for the fleet. In early May the Alexander was at Gibraltar when she came under the command of the newly arrived Horatio Nelson. The recently promoted Rear-Admiral had not forgotten the awkwardness at St. Omer: he greeted Ball with the petulant comment ‘so you have come to have your bones broken’. Ball’s response was characteristically measured and appropriate: he did not wish to have his bones broken, but if his King and country required it, then so be it.

The French flagship l’Orient explodes at the Battle of the Nile

The Vanguard 74 (Nelson’s flagship), the Orion 74 (under Sir James Saumarez) and the Alexander were ordered to investigate French activity in the Mediterranean, the first substantial British foray into that sea for sixteen months. After a violent storm broke on 21 May damaging the Vanguard’s masts, the Alexander took the flagship in tow. When Nelson, fearing for the Alexander’s safety ordered Ball to cast off the tow, he calmly refused. The Alexander towed the Vanguard for twenty hours before reaching safety at Sardinia. Once it was safe to do so, the admiral wasted no time in going aboard the Alexander to express his admiration of Ball’s seamanship and tenacity; Nelson’s previous petulance forgotten, a great friendship was formed. Two weeks later, Nelson’s three ships were joined by eleven more, creating the powerful squadron that was to win the Battle of the Nile.

On 1 August 1798 the Alexander was unavoidably two hours late in getting into battle. The original plan had her leading the line, but Nelson had sent her ahead to look into Alexandria for the French fleet. Nevertheless, together with the Swiftsure 74, Captain Benjamin Hallowell, she engaged the enemy flagship, l’Orient 120, to such devastating effect that the latter caught fire. Having cut her cable to avoid the conflagration, the Alexander moved on to engage the Tonnant 80 until the massive explosion of the l’Orient brought debris raining down on her deck, igniting several fires and forcing her out of the battle for a couple of hours. Once the Alexanders had doused the fires and had a brief rest, Ball attempted to engage surviving French ships at the rear of their line. But his ship’s rigging was damaged, and her crew exhausted, so that despite the best efforts of the Alexander and her comrades, several enemy ships managed to escape the carnage. Nevertheless, it was a stunning victory. The Alexander’s casualties in the battle numbered fourteen men killed and fifty-eight wounded, the latter figure including Ball. Following the battle she sailed for Naples, having aboard Rear-Admiral Blanquet Du Chayla, whose flagship, Franklin, had surrendered after a brave resistance.

The Blockade of Malta

In October 1798 Ball assumed command of the blockade of the French forces in Malta, taking over from a Portuguese squadron. He supported the siege on land even though there were wide-spread doubts whether it could succeed, and despite a lack of support from his Neapolitan and Russians allies. The Portuguese had not managed to do much against the French, but Ball quickly seized the initiative, and he soon captured the nearby island of Gozo. In February 1799 he accepted Maltese requests to become president of their council and commander-in-chief, and he was given the provisional title of Governor. Thus, he spent all his time ashore, organising resistance whilst his first lieutenant, William Harrington, commanded the Alexander at sea. Ball was therefore absent when the Généreux 74 was captured off the island on 18 February 1800. Such was his concern for the Maltese that he despatched the Alexander to seize a convoy of corn ships from Agrigento in Sicily, carrying food that had been withheld from the Maltese people by the intrigues of the Neapolitan court.

By the time that the French surrendered on 5 September 1800 Ball was immensely popular with the Maltese, far more so than the British Army commander-in-chief, Major-General Henry Pigot, who tended to treat the Maltese as a conquered race. Nevertheless, when Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby arrived at Malta three months later, he requested Ball resume command of the Alexander, much to the annoyance of the island’s inhabitants. During the following March his ship joined Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren in the pursuit of Rear-Admiral Ganteaume’s Brest fleet on its cruise in the Mediterranean. In May 1801 he left the Alexander to assume the role of commissioner of the navy at Gibraltar, overseeing the small naval base there. However, his arduous service at Malta had been noticed by the authorities – on 6 June Ball was created a baronet, and also received orders of knighthood from the Knights of St John, and the King of the Two Sicilies. He returned to England in the last few days of 1801 aboard the Minotaur 74, Captain Sir Thomas Louis.

Governing Malta

By the terms of the Treaty of Amiens that ended the French Revolutionary War, the British were to evacuate Malta and return it to the control of the Knights of the Order of St John who had ruled it until 1798. Ball was appointed His Majesty’s Minister Plenipotentiary to oversee the evacuation, and he sailed for the island from Portsmouth on 15 June 1802 aboard the Penelope 36, Captain William Robert Broughton. Within a few months the British government put the evacuation on hold (despite the violent protests of the French ambassador). The British refusal to give up the island would become one of the major reasons why hostilities with France reopened in May 1803.

At the resumption of war, Ball’s title was changed to Civil Commissioner, making him effectively the governor of the island. It had always been Ball’s wish to retire from active service and he was ideally suited for this position. He spent the next six years creating the political and legal institutions that would allow the British to control the island, while providing the Maltese with honest and effective government. His management of the island allowed it to become prosperous, probably the most important commercial entrepot in the Mediterranean. Ball was adored by many of the Maltese, who stopped with bare heads as he passed, and even sang songs in his honour. It was said that every house had two pictures – one of the Virgin Mary and one of Ball. The poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who served as his secretary in Malta for eighteen months, called him ‘a truly great man’. In his book of philosophical essays titled ‘The Friend’, Ball is held up as an exemplar of Coleridge’s beliefs about living a worthy life.

Ball was promoted a rear-admiral on 9 November 1805, but he never hoisted his flag at sea. Aged just 52, he died of a short illness at his private residence, Villa San Anton just outside of Valetta, on 20 October 1809. Following a military funeral, he was buried eleven days later in Fort St Elmo near the graves of General Abercromby and Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis. Appropriately for such a scholarly man, the lengthy epitaph on his grave was entirely in Latin. He was succeeded in his baronetcy by his son, William Keith Ball.

In his youth a protégé of Admiral Lord Rodney, in later life Ball enjoyed a strong friendship with both Nelson, who frequently corresponded with him, and with Lady Hamilton. He was a courteous, charming gentleman of impeccable manners, with the appearance of scholar rather than a seaman. Highly cerebral, he took the opportunity to study everything he could about all the countries he visited, and possessed a large library, including books relating to history, travel, natural history, political economy and agriculture. He did not enjoy novels, despite the fact that the story of Robinson Crusoe and the tales by William Dampier, the buccaneer and explorer, had persuaded him to go to sea in the first place. Even in the occasionally fractious community of Royal Navy officers, he was widely respected and considered to be totally sound and reliable.