Henry Jenkins (1764-1813)
One of a small number of British captains to lose their post ships in battle during the French Wars, Jenkins though brave, was revealed to be both weak and incompetent.
He was commissioned lieutenant on 23 December 1780 during the American Revolutionary War – he was to remain in this rank for the next fourteen and a half years.
On 3 December 1792 he was appointed the first lieutenant of the frigate Boston 28, Captain George Courtenay, serving in home waters, and five months later (at the beginning of the French Revolutionary War) he became third lieutenant aboard the London 90, Captain Richard Goodwin Keats, serving in the Channel Fleet. He next joined the Colossus 74, Captain Charles Morice Pole, in March 1794 as her first lieutenant, and was to become a follower of this officer for the next few years. After a refit at Portsmouth, the Colossus joined the Channel Fleet, although she was not present at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. She did however participate in the Battle of Groix on 23 June 1795 under the command of temporary Captain John Monkton, (Pole having been promoted rear-admiral earlier that month), and along with all the other senior lieutenants involved in that engagement the 32-year-old Jenkins was promoted commander on 29 June.
Apparently, his long tenure as a lieutenant had been noticed, since he only had to wait three months before he received the coveted promotion to captain on 28 September 1795. This advancement appears to have been made in order to allow him to take command of the Colossus, now Rear-Admiral Pole’s flagship. After remaining at anchor at Spithead for some weeks, the Colossus set sail on 16 November for the Leeward Islands with Rear-Admiral Hugh Christian’s expeditionary force, but no sooner had the ships put to sea than they were overcome by bitter winter storms, which resulted in the loss of many lives and the expedition’s return to port a week later. Towards the end of the year Christian’s fleet tried to sail once more, only for many of the ships, including the Colossus to return to Portsmouth at the end of January 1796. By now, the weather-beaten Colossus was in such a bad condition that she had to be taken into dock for a full repair. At Plymouth, Pole, Jenkins and the Colossus’ crew transferred to the Carnatic 74, a change which would have been made easier by the fact that the Carnatic was a sister ship of the Colossus. Pole and Jenkins set sail once more from Portsmouth for the West Indies with several transports in mid-April 1796, six months after the original attempt. Upon arriving in the Leeward Islands, Jenkins participated in that summer’s campaign; Admiral Pole returned to England but the Carnatic remained on the Jamaican station at the end of the year.
Late in 1797 Jenkins transferred to the frigate Ambuscade 32, taking a number of his former crew with him. In March 1798 the ship arrived at Plymouth after a passage of sixty days from Jamaica, having been separated from her convoy of 41 merchantmen in the Gulf of Florida several weeks earlier. In June the Ambuscade departed Plymouth on a cruise, although in late July she was back at the Devonshire port, having sprung her main mast. On 20 November she assisted the Phaeton 38, Captain Hon. Robert Stopford, in the capture of the richly laden French ship Hirondelle 20, which was returning home from the Île de France to Bordeaux with a cargo of coffee and sugar estimated at 60,000 guineas, although the resulting court case was not settled until 1804. The Ambuscade accompanied the prize to Spithead and once she was back to sea off Bordeaux, she captured the French letter-of-marque brig Faucon 10, laden with goods from Guadeloupe.
Despite these successes, the Ambuscade was in fact a poorly manned frigate with a dispirited crew, and this was partly a result of Jenkins’ favouritism to the men who had joined the frigate from the Carnatic. These failings came home to roost in her shameful defeat by the smaller French corvette Baionnaise 28 on 14 December. The Ambuscade initially mistook the Baionnaise for a British ship, allowing her to approach unmolested. Realising their mistake, the British ship pursued the French one, engaging her opponent until one of the 12-pounders burst, injuring a dozen British sailors. The French ship took the opportunity to escape her assailant, but the Ambuscade pursued and ran ahead of the Baionnaise. The captain of the corvette decided to board his opponent, and ran his ship onto the Ambuscades’ stern, allowing the French soldiers on the bow to pick off many of the men on the gun deck of the British frigate, including Captain Jenkins, who was badly wounded to the upper thigh. As the French boarded, many of the British crew panicked and fled below, allowing the French to carry the ship.
The Ambuscade had sent about thirty of her crew on board prizes and thus was undermanned – in fact her crew was smaller than that of the much less well-armed Frenchman. Nevertheless, this was a triumph for the French and ended a long string of British victories in single-ship battles. When the news of the capture first broke in the French papers it was barely given credence in Britain but soon excuses began to circulate: the Ambuscades had thrown her guns over the side the day before in a gale, or United Irishmen aboard her had rebelled. The French treated the captured crewmen poorly, but the injured men (including Jenkins) were well cared for. At the end of February, a French cartel arrived at Plymouth from Rochefort carrying most of the officers and crew, but not Jenkins, who had been deemed too ill to move. He eventually arrived at Dover aboard a cartel at the beginning of August, and at the end of the month he was brought before a court-martial at Portsmouth for the loss of the Ambuscade, presided over by Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis. Somewhat surprisingly both he and the entire ships company were acquitted; however, the verdict recorded that many men had not done their duty after their captain’s incapacitation. During the trial it had been noted that Jenkins was still very ill, arousing much sympathy for his condition, which for the rest of his life left him able to walk only with crutches. Even discounting his conduct in command of the Ambuscade, his disability would have prevented him from commanding at sea again. In 1804 he requested a suitable post from the Admiralty (presumably on land), but without success.
In September 1799 Jenkins had married Frances Ellis Moyle at Greenwich. In 1802, she gave birth to a daughter (Mary) at Southampton and two sons (Henry Pole and George Henry) followed over the next few years, although sadly neither survived infancy. Jenkins was granted a pension of £200 for the loss of the use of his leg, and in June 1810 he was appointed a captain of Greenwich Hospital. He died at Greenwich in his 50th year on 10 November 1813 and was buried in the Royal Naval Hospital burial ground. In his will he left a substantial sum (£7,400) to be divided between his wife and daughter.