James Robert Mosse

1745- 1801. Baptised on 5 December 1745, he came from a naval family, being the son of John Mosse of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, and of his wife, Jane Bur.

On 6 August 1757 Mosse entered the Navy aboard the Burford 68, Captain James Young, which vessel participated in the raid on Rochefort prior to going out to North America in February 1758, by which time she was under the command of Captain James Gambier. She was present that summer at the siege of Louisbourg before returning to England with a number of French prisoners. In November he joined the Lizard 28, Captain James Doake, which sailed for North America in the following February and was present at the capture of Quebec in September 1759. The frigate later saw action in the West Indies, and although Mosse officially remained with her until May 1763, by which time she had been successively commanded by Captains John Brisbane and Francis Banks, it appears that he was at some time taken prisoner by the enemy and remained so until the end of the Seven Years War in February 1763.

During the ensuing decade of peace, he saw service in home waters aboard the Hussar 28, Tweed 32, Yarmouth 64, and Bellona 74. Having passed his lieutenant’s examination in 1765, Mosse joined the Northumberland 74, Captain John Symons, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Harland when departing for the East Indies in March 1771, and he was commissioned lieutenant on the following 4 October. Transferring to the Swallow 14, Commander James Shirley, he subsequently saw employment in the East Indies on the Orford 68, Captain Charles Leslie, and the Buckingham 68, Captain Symons, before returning to England in 1775, at which time he long been incapacitated by a head wound that had been sustained by a piece of wood falling from above.

From March 1776 he was aboard the Juno 32, Captain Hugh Dalrymple, which sailed for North American waters in the following month, and where in February 1778 he joined Vice-Admiral Lord Howe’s flagship Eagle 64, Captain Roger Curtis. In the autumn of 1780, he removed to the Alfred 74, Captain William Bayne, which sailed for the West Indies in October, and by the time he returned home in August 1781, having taken part in the capture of St. Eustatius on 3 February 1781 and the Battle of Fort Royal on 29 April, he was serving aboard the Vengeance 74, Captain John Holloway, flying the broad pennant of Commodore William Hotham.

Upon the appointment of Admiral Lord Howe to command the Channel Fleet following a change of government in April 1782, Mosse rejoined him aboard the flagship Victory 100, Captain Henry Duncan. He was promoted commander of the fireship Pluto 8 on 15 June, attached to Commodore John Elliot’s squadron, in which he dropped down to St. Helens from Portsmouth on 23 July to sail at the end of the month with an express for Lord Howe. During August the Pluto was with the Grand Fleet at Spithead, and after participating in the relief of Gibraltar on 18 October, she returned to St. Helens with the fleet on 14 November and spent the winter at Spithead. On 17 January 1783 she was with Elliot’s squadron when it sailed from Portsmouth, but by the beginning of February she was back at Spithead, and she was paid off at Chatham in mid-April.

The execution of the chief mutineer, Richard Parker, in 1797. Captain Mosse is portrayed on the right of the image.

During the peace Mosse saw some employment at Bristol in the Impressment Service, and at the time of the Spanish Armament in 1790 he commanded the sloop Wasp 14 from 28 April, arriving in the Downs on 12 June before going out on a cruise at the end of the month. This vessel continued to serve out of the Downs until Mosse was posted captain of the Assurance 44 on 1 September, although he does not appear to have taken her to sea.

On 8 February 1793 he was appointed to the thirty-year-old Sandwich 90, which was employed as a guardship at the Nore, and aboard which he initially served as the flag-captain to the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral John Dalrymple. In March 1795 Vice-Admiral Charles Buckner assumed command of the station, on whose tenure the Mutiny at the Nore broke out on 12 May 1797. Following the end of the insurrection, one in which Mosse had remained ashore because of a severe case of gout, he successfully prosecuted the leading mutineer, Richard Parker, who was condemned to death. He then became flag-captain to Vice-Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge from July 1797 until the Sandwich was paid off in September, having been sent up to Chatham to be surveyed.

From October 1797 Mosse had the guardship Brakel 54, which ship had been seized from the Dutch at Plymouth in March 1796, and in which he sailed from the Nore to reinforce Admiral Adam Duncan’s fleet in the North Sea a few days after the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October. Remaining with that force, the Brakel was at Yarmouth in March 1798, and she briefly served as a guardship in Wallet Sound off Essex before departing Yarmouth with troops on 11 April.

In May 1798, it was announced that he was to exchange with Captain James Walker into the Veteran 64, and he took that vessel out of Yarmouth with Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Onslow’s squadron towards the end of the month to closely blockade the Texel. She briefly returned at the beginning of July, and after further service off the Texel she arrived at Sheerness on the last day of the month. The Veteran sailed for the Dutch coast once more on 13 August in company with Admiral Duncan’s flagship, prior to returning with the North Sea fleet to Yarmouth on 16 September, and on 8 October she put out under the orders of Commodore Robert M’Douall of the Ganges 74 to cruise off Helvoetsluys and prevent three Dutch sail of the line and two frigates from joining their compatriots in the Texel. She was soon back in the Yarmouth Roads, where she remained with the fleet until 19 December, on which date she put out with M’Douall’s squadron on a three-day cruise. Thereafter, she remained in Yarmouth, and in the spring of 1799, she flew the flag of Vice-Admiral Archibald Dickson.

In May 1799 Mosse exchanged with Captain Archibald Collingwood Dickson into the Monarch 74, which continued to fly the flag of Admiral Dickson off the Texel before entering Yarmouth for a refit on 18 July. She briefly served in the Channel Fleet before returning to the Downs to rejoin the North Sea fleet in mid-September, and for some weeks she remained at Yarmouth until arriving at Sheerness on 26 February 1800. In early May she took Admiral Dickson back to the Dutch coast from Yarmouth, and during August-September she was attached to that officer’s peaceful expedition to Copenhagen. She subsequently arrived at Sheerness from Yarmouth on 21 December to be taken into the harbour before departing for the Nore in mid-February 1801.

Joining the expedition which was sent to the Baltic in the spring of 1801 to confront the Armed Neutrality of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, the Monarch led the fleet through the Sound under fire from the Danes in Kronberg Castle, but Mosse was killed outright at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April, having just taken up his allotted station with the Monarch after progressing along the British line of battle. In what was a particularly bloody engagement, his command’s casualties of fifty-six men killed and one hundred and sixty-four wounded were the highest in the fleet. He was buried at sea, whilst Captain William Bligh temporarily took command of the Monarch for her return to England.

In a heart-rending postscript, Captain Robert Waller Otway came across Mosse’s son in the London crowd after delivering the news of the battle to the Admiralty, and it was he who had to inform the boy of his father’s death. In time, a monument was erected in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral to Mosse’s memory and to that of Captain Edward Riou, who was also killed at the Battle of Copenhagen.

Mosse married Anne Grace Kinchin of Stoke Charity, Hampshire, on 16 March 1780 and had six children. His residence was at Wickham in Hampshire.

He was reportedly well regarded by the common seamen.