Hon. Seymour Finch

1758-1794. He was born on 11 June 1758, the seventh son of Heneage Finch, the 3rd Earl of Aylesford, and of his wife Lady Charlotte Seymour, the daughter of the Duke of Somerset. He was the younger brother of Captain Hon. William Clement Finch, and the brother-in-law of the Earls of Suffolk and Dartmouth..Captain Lord Robert Manners was his first cousin

Finch was posted captain following the capture of St. Eustatius in 1781

Finch s initial service appears to have been in the early 1770 s aboard the Panther 60, Captain Cornthwaite Ommanney, with the broad pennant of Commodore Molyneux Shuldham at Newfoundland, on which vessel his brother also served.

He was commissioned lieutenant on 30 August 1777 and after a spell in the Channel Fleet aboard the Victory 100, Captain Jonathon Faulknor, he was promoted commander of the sloop Salamander 16 on 21 September 1779, in which he went out to the Leeward Islands in May of the following year after she underwent a refit and coppering at Portsmouth.

Following the capture of St. Eustatius on 3 February 1781 he was posted captain of the French built Alcmene 32 on 13 February. This frigate was attached to Commodore William Hotham s convoy which was intercepted and ravaged by the French on its voyage home with the booty from the Dutch island. The Alcmene was then paid off in August.

In late 1781 he joined the Monsieur 36, serving in the Channel, in Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt s brilliant attack on a French convoy on 12 December and under the same officer off Brest during the Channel fleet campaign of April-August 1782. Within this period he captured the privateers Sensible on 6 March 1782 and Manerbe three weeks later. In the summer of 1782 the Monsieur joined a flying squadron under the orders of Captain Samuel Reeve of the Crown 64 which cruised to the westward. She was paid off in March 1783 after the end of the American Revolutionary War.

In August 1786 Finch recommissioned the Pearl 32, serving in the Mediterranean from the following spring, and being paid off in the latter part of 1789. He then recommissioned the Lion 64 for the Spanish Armament of 1790, sailing out to the West Indies with Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish in October 1790, and being paid off in September 1791 following the end of the Russian Armament..

In September 1793 he recommissioned the Arethusa 38, but he died on 2 February 1794 with the command devolving on Captain Sir Edward Pellew.

During his time in the Mediterranean Finch surveyed the Magdalena Islands, north of Sardinia.