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 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 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 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 | 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 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 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...
