by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 9, 2018 | 1788, The Peace of 1784-1792
The promotion of captains to flag rank had never been a cut and dried process, despite the general assumption that the achievement of the rank of post captain entitled one to join the list of officers who would in strict succession reach the rank of admiral....
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 10, 2018 | 1788, The Peace of 1784-1792
On 22 December 1786 the frigate Phaeton 38, Captain George Dawson, left Portsmouth bound for the Mediterranean station where the peace-time squadron consisted of the commander-in-chief?s 50-gun vessel, four or so frigates and a couple of brigs or sloops. Here...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 9, 2018 | 1787
For a couple of all too brief but exciting months during the autumn the Navy mobilised to meet the threat of a French involvement in Dutch affairs, but following sound diplomacy the so-called ?Dutch Armament? petered out and the disappointed officers returned...
by Richard Hiscocks | Apr 19, 2018 | 1787, The Peace of 1784-1792
In September 1786 Captain Arthur Phillip was chosen to head an expedition to establish a convict colony and the first white settlement on the east coast of New Holland, which part of what is now known as Australia had been claimed and named New South Wales by...
by Richard Hiscocks | May 5, 2018 | 1787
For the best part of seven years there had been trouble in the Dutch Republic where two opposing groups, the Orange Party, led by the Stadtholder, William V Prince of Orange, and the Patriots, a group keen to see the restoration of a republic, had been vying...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 29, 2018 | 1786, The Peace of 1784-1792
The third year of peace following the end of the American Revolutionary War was, if anything, quieter than the previous two, and the only significant public interest involving a sea officer came in July when an ecclesiastical court found the wife of Captain...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 29, 2018 | 1786, The Peace of 1784-1792
During the third week of July 1785 the whiff of a scandal had arisen in the newspapers when an un-named captain of the navy had been reported as seeking a divorce from his wife on account of her ?having fancied the countenance of a Negro?. When the General...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 18, 2018 | 1785, The Peace of 1784-1792
The second year of peace remained a quiet one for the navy, with very little activity. The otherwise under-occupied Admiralty was forced to recall Commodore Sir Charles Douglas from his position as the commander-in-chief at Halifax in February due to disputes...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 17, 2018 | 1785, The Peace of 1784-1792
The trial of Captain Isaac Prescott for cruelty to his wife – 1785 It is fair to say that Captain Isaac Prescott was probably a typical old school sea officer, but as his trial in the Consistory Court of Doctor’s Commons for ‘wanton, tyrannical,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 6, 2018 | 1785, The Peace of 1784-1792
Sir Charles Douglas is recalled from Halifax – February 1785 In July 1783 the esteemed Commodore Sir Charles Douglas arrived back at Spithead from the Leeward Islands where he had been captain of the fleet to Admiral Hugh Pigot, the position from which he...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 18, 2018 | 1785, The Peace of 1784-1792
In 1783 a 29 year-old budding balloonist by the name of Count Francesco Zambeccari arrived in England having recently witnessed the first unmanned balloon flights in Paris by the Montgolfier brothers. That November the count sent his own unmanned balloon up...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 8, 2018 | 1785, The Peace of 1784-1792
The 26 year-old Captain Horatio Nelson was one of the navy?s more fortunate officers in so much that his early career had benefitted from the patronage of the comptroller of the navy, Maurice Suckling, and that having achieved the rank of post captain at an...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 28, 2018 | 1784, The Peace of 1784-1792
1784 Overview In 1784 hostilities with the Netherlands finally ceased. Although Ceylon was returned to the Dutch her trade had suffered greatly from the British blockade, and such was the damage to the Dutch East India Company that it would only survive for another...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 6, 2018 | 1784, The Peace of 1784-1792
The Treaty of Mangalore ends Mr Carthew’s bitter imprisonment – March 1784 In December 1781 the Hannibal 50, Captain Alexander Christie, having arrived at St. Helena to convey home the trade, was summarily ordered to the East Indies on the orders of...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 28, 2018 | 1784, The Peace of 1784-1792
In the spring of 1784 the popular Rear-Admiral Lord Hood, a holder of an Irish peerage and thus eligible to sit in the House of Commons, contested the election for the country?s most liberal borough, that of the City of Westminster, in order to support William...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 22, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
On 20 January Britain, France and Spain ceased hostilities, although the war between Britain and the Netherlands continued , whilst that with the Americans only formally ended on 3 September. As a result of the ensuing peace treaty Britain retained Canada, all...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 25, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Magicienne v Sibylle – 2 January 1783 An escorted British convoy of thirty-eight vessels carrying troops, displaced loyalist families from the Carolinas, and over four thousand negroes belonging to the latter, was in passage to Jamaica when on the morning...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 25, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Leander v Mystery Ship of the Line – 19 January 1783 Captain John Willett Payne had been in command of the Leander 52 for but a few short weeks when at 1 p.m. on 18 January, whilst escorting a cartel in the Leeward Islands, a larger vessel was seen...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 4, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Hussar v Sibylle – 22 January 1783 The British sloop Hussar 20, Captain Thomas Macnamara Russell, was cruising off the mouth of the Chesapeake in a fresh gale when through the haze she spotted a jury-rigged frigate steering in a westerly direction on the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 6, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Mutiny on the Janus and Disaffection at Portsmouth – March 1783 ? Following the ending in January of hostilities with all of Britain?s enemies bar the Netherlands, a significant number of ships returned to port with crews who were looking forward to being paid...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 22, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Following the change of government in April 1782 many of the admirals who had refused to serve under the previous administration had returned to duty, and amongst them was the 67 year-old hereditary baronet Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. Sir Hyde was a crusty...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 20, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
In the early summer of 1783 the newspapers were gripped by the trial of a lieutenant of Marines, Charles Bourne, late of the Warrior 74, on the prosecution of her former captain, Sir James Wallace, the officer who had been so active in the American...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 11, 2018 | 1783, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The failure to recover the port of Trincomale in Ceylon during September 1782 had resulted in Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes? fleet entering Madras in October before retiring to Bombay to refit, there being no port on the Coromandel Coast of eastern India which...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 13, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Following the surrender of Lieutenant-General Lord Cornwallis? army at Yorktown in October 1781 American independence was all but granted by the debt-ridden British, who now took steps to assume an ascendancy over the French before peace could be negotiated. To...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 13, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Battle of St. Kitts – 25/26 January 1782 Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, the acting commander-in-chief in the Leeward Islands, had only recently returned to Barbados from North America with eighteen sail of the line when he received intelligence from the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 15, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Battle of Sadras – 17 February 1782 Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes had not long effected the successful reduction of Dutch Trincomale by taking the principle bastion Fort Oostenburg on 11 January with casualties of twenty-one killed and forty-two wounded,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 19, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Success v Santa Catalina – 16 March 1782 Born to a prominent family, Captain Charles Morice Pole had risen quickly in the service with his early promotions taking place in the East Indies under the patronage of Commodores Sir Edward Hughes and Sir Edward...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 24, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
To the great relief of the navy and the country as a whole, the fall of Lord North?s government enabled the hitherto dissident Vice-Admiral Lord Howe to take command of the Channel Fleet on 2 April. At last the country?s most important line of defence had a...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 29, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Battle of Providien – 12 April 1782 After his earlier inconclusive battle with the Bailli de Suffren off Sadras, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes and his nine sail of the line had undertaken repairs at Trincomale before departing for Madras on 4 March in...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 9, 2017 | 1782, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
Battle of the Saintes – 12 April 1782 Shortly after daylight broke on 8 April over the British Leeward Islands fleet at anchor in Gros Islet Bay, St. Lucia, a message was rushed below to the commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir George Rodney, in the great...
