James Cumming (1738-1808)

Cumming enjoyed almost constant employment through the Seven Years War, and in the peace that followed he played an important part in Captain John Byron’s voyage to the Pacific. Though he fought in the American Revolutionary War, he had few opportunities to gain distinction as a captain, and none once he reached flag rank.

He was born on 16 April 1738 at Sandwich, Kent, one of four sons along with a daughter of James Cumming, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and of his wife Anne Hills. He was the brother of Captain William Cumming.

James Cumming attended the Royal Naval Academy for some three years from 1751, and he was commissioned lieutenant on 7 April 1758 during the Seven Years War. He initially served aboard the captured French xebec Mediterranean 12 (a local vessel having both sails and oars) until she was lost six months later near Livorno. He then moved to the Fame 74 under Captain John Byron, staying aboard for nearly four years, participating in the destruction of Louisbourg in 1760 and the expedition to capture Belle Isle in 1761. Brief appointments on a frigate and ship of the line followed, as the Seven Years War ended and the country transitioned to peace.

In March of 1764, he received an important appointment: first lieutenant to Captain Hon . John Byron aboard the Dolphin 20 on a voyage of exploration to the South Seas. The ship departed England with a consort (the Tamar 16 under Commander Patrick Mouat) in July 1764. After visiting the Falkland Islands, they sailed through the Straits of Magellan and on reaching the Pacific Ocean in April 1765, Byron promoted Mouat to post captain and moved him to the Dolphin – this enabled Cumming to switch to take command of the sloop, with the rank of acting commander. Despite instructions to search for the north-west passage, instead the two ships traversed the enormous expanse of the great ocean, without discovering the legendary lands Byron hoped to find. The explorers only ran across a couple of the northern Tuamotus Islands (named by Byron the Isles of Disappointment) before taking a direct route to Batavia, and from there to the Cape of Good Hope. In May 1766 the Tamar arrived at Antigua having sprung her mast, and she reached Spithead on 21 July, prior to proceeding to Deptford to be paid off.

The Battle of St. Lucia

From August 1766 Cumming commanded the brig Wasp 8 for three years in home and Irish waters, cruising to intercept smugglers, with the occasional visit to the continent. Then after almost two years on the beach, in June 1771 he was appointed to the similarly rated Cruizer, operating out of Dover and working in the preventative service. His vessel was part of the small squadron which transferred the banished Caroline Matilda Queen of Denmark (sister of King Geeorge III) from Elsinore to her exile in Hanover. The 34-year-old Cumming was posted to captain on 30 July 1772, reportedly at the instigation of Queen Caroline.

Shortly after returning from the Baltic, Cumming joined the Deal Castle 20, for service in home waters. Towards the end of April 1773, she went out to the Leeward Islands where she remained until May 1775 when she returned to Spithead carrying Sir Ralph Payne, the late Governor-General of the Leeward Islands. After sailing for Plymouth in July, Cumming left the command.

He seems to have briefly commanded the impress service at Gravesend in early 1777, as the Royal Navy sought additional men for the fight in North America, and in June Cumming commissioned the frigate Aurora 28, then fitting out at Woolwich. During September she went aground in a storm in the Orkney Islands, but evidently she did not sustain too much damage, for in the following month she was sent from the Downs to cruise off the Iberian Peninsula in search of American privateers. In November she sailed for the Leeward Islands with a convoy of 96 ships, in company with several other men-of-war. Remaining in the West Indies the Aurora was present at the Battle of St. Lucia on 15 December 1778, and Cumming led a brigade of seamen to erect a battery ashore. On 13 January 1779 his frigate captured the privateer American St. Peter armed with eighteen 6-pounders, and in the spring, she was sent with five other men of war in chase of a superior French force, which however escaped into Basse Terre, Guadeloupe. Returning to England, on 22 October the Aurora arrived at Dover with a large Swedish prize that had been trading between Havana and Cadiz and was reported to value £30,000 (about 4.5m in today’s money).

On 27 April 1780 Cumming commissioned the new fifth rate two-decked Assurance 44, although in August she was still lying at Deptford for want of a crew. By September she was in the Downs, and she went out to North America via Cork in the following month with a fleet of victuallers, reaching Charlestown after a passage of twelve weeks and then sailing on to New York. He left this vessel in May 1781 to take command of the captured American frigate Confederancy 36 (re-named the Confederate), a four-year old ship that was almost the length of a sail of the line. She was sent to England with dispatches and a convoy, reaching Falmouth on 19 July; once she was examined at Woolwich, she was found to be defective and ordered to be broken up.

Cumming remained unemployed for the remainder of the American Revolutionary War and the ensuing years of peace, In May 1793, five months after the start of the French Revolutionary War, he recommissioned the Resolution 74 at Chatham, and to recognise his new command in the following month he attended a royal levee. Towards the end of December, the Resolution arrived at Portsmouth with a large convoy of Indiamen from the Downs, and on 13 January 1794 she joined the unsuccessful chase of five French frigates which had pursued the Hind 28, Captain Philip Durham. During March she joined Rear-Admiral John MacBride’s squadron which was sent to defend the Channel Islands; Cumming vacated the command when he was created a rear-admiral on 12 April of the following month.

He was further promoted vice-admiral on 1 June 1795 and admiral on 1 January 1801. Aged 70, Admiral Cumming died at his residence in Wilmington, near Dartford, Kent, on 19 August 1808, and he was buried at St. Lukes Church, Greenwich. His portrait (now in the National Maritime Museum) shows a handsome, approachable-looking man, who we know was six feet two inches tall, since he was the template for Captain Byron’s estimate of the height of an even taller Patagonian chief.