Jeremiah Coghlan (1775-1844)
A protégé of famed frigate captain Sir Edward Pellew, the fearless Coghlan performed astonishing feats of bravery throughout his career as he rose to become a post captain.
Born to a humble family from Crookhaven in County Cork, Ireland, Coghlan first came to notice when, as a young master’s mate in the merchant service, he assisted Captain Sir Edward Pellew in the rescue of soldiers and civilians from the wreck of the Dutton at Plymouth on 26 January 1796. One account (there are several versions of the story) has Coghlan taking to the freezing cold sea with a rope tied around his waist, and hauling several men to safety. When the storm began to abate, he is said to have commandeered a boat and taken at least another fifty survivors off the wreck before any naval boats dared approach it. Pellew was very impressed with his initiative and bravery, and he offered Coghlan a position (initially as able seaman and a few months later as midshipman) aboard his ship, the Indefatigable 44. In March 1799 he followed his famous mentor to the Impetueux 78.
In June 1800 Coghlan was given the command of one of the Impetueux’s tenders, the cutter Viper 12, as an acting lieutenant. On 29 July, whilst off Port Louis near Lorient, he volunteered to cut out the French gunboat Cerbère 7, despite the fact that an enemy 74-gun ship and two frigates were within a mile, and that she was anchored within pistol shot of three batteries. His party consisted of three boats, but when two failed to reach the target, he determined to continue the attack with just his own boat, carrying eighteen men and a midshipman (Silas Hiscutt Paddon). His initial attack was repulsed, and he was wounded in the thigh after becoming entangled in netting, yet he launched another assault and brought out the French vessel under fire with the loss of one man killed and ten wounded – both he and the equally bold Paddon suffered multiple wounds. The commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent, compared this brilliant exploit to the astonishing cutting out of the Hermione nine months earlier, and he personally rewarded Coghlan with a hundred-guinea sword. He also ensured that Coghlan was promoted to lieutenant 22 September 1800, despite not having served the six years required by Admiralty regulations.
Coghlan, who was by now in his mid-twenties, continued to command the Viper, and on 1 November his cutter recaptured the transport Diamond which had been taken by a French privateer whilst homeward bound from Halifax, carrying baggage and horses belonging to the Duke of Kent. In January 1801 the Viper was sent out to Gibraltar with sealed orders, and whilst in passage she captured a couple of enemy merchant vessels. In early March she arrived at Falmouth with a deeply laden French brig that she had taken whilst cruising in the Bay of Biscay, and she assisted the Atalante 16, Commander Anselm Griffiths, in the capture of the French privateer Heros 14 off Land’s End a month later. Next joining Pellew’s squadron off Rochefort, Coghlan’s command drove the corvette Tapageur 16 into Bordeaux following a brief engagement. The Viper remained on this station until she was paid off at Plymouth on 28 October.
After a short period of unemployment, in the spring of 1802 (during the brief peace following the end of the French Revolutionary War) Coghlan was appointed to the cutter Nimble 12, operating out of Plymouth and Dartmouth in the preventative service. In August the Nimble entered Plymouth harbour to refit, and once she was ready for sea at the beginning of November, she sailed with dispatches for Africa. By February 1803 she was back at Plymouth, and following the start of the Napoleonic War in May she operated out of Falmouth, escorting convoys and ferrying dispatches to and from the Channel Islands. By the beginning of 1804 she was serving with Commodore Sir Edward Pellew’s squadron off Ferrol, where a January gale saw her spring her mast and jettison most of her guns.
Promoted commander on 1 May 1804, Coghlan was given command of the sloop Renard 18, then in the West Indies, and took passage out to join his ship . On 20 March 1805 she fell in with the infamous privateer Général Ernouf 20, Captain Paul Gerard Pointe, off Haiti, and when the enemy demanded that he ‘strike’ Coghlan announced that he would, ‘and damned hard too!’ True to his word, Coghlan and his crew performed magnificently, and having inflicted severe casualties on the privateer, within thirty-five minutes she blew up with the loss of 105 men. Another 55 sailors were rescued from the wreckage, whilst casualties on the Renard numbered a mere nine men wounded.
Continuing on the Jamaican station, in October the Renard captured the privateer Bellone 4 off San Domingo, and on 28 May 1806 she fell in with the French brig Diligente 16, Captain Vincent Therenard, in the Mona Passage. Coghlan had just come off two weeks on the sick list for ‘violent headache, pain and oppression of the chest, shooting pains of the limbs, and nausea’. Nevertheless, he embarked on a three-day chase, some of which was under sweeps (oars), at the end of which he was suddenly astonished to receive the enemy’s surrender without their firing a single shot. It transpired that the tired and dispirited French had assumed the Renard to be the frigate Magicienne 32, and such was the French captain’s dismay at his error that he asked Coghlan to pen a letter in praise of his ‘resistance’. The Diligente was subsequently bought into the Navy and later renamed the Wolf.
In the summer of 1806, still on the Jamaican station, Coghlan was appointed to the sloop Lark 16. He continued to be successful in his new command, capturing the Spanish revenue cutters Postillon and Carmen off Puerto Bello at the end of January 1807, and sending in his boats to take a gunboat at Puerto Cispata a few days later. In company with the Ferret 18, Commander George Lennock, he also took the French vessel Mosquito 8 in August 1807.
In the late summer of 1807 Coghlan removed to the brig Elk 18 at Jamaica, with which he continued to collect his fair share of prizes, one of which, in the early days of his command, was a Spanish ship reportedly carrying 125,000 dollars as well as a valuable cargo. Other captures included the Harlequin 2 on 12 February 1808 and the Spanish packet Posta de Caraccas 1 with a cargo of leather and 24,000 dollars in November. In the summer of 1808, the Elk was off Havana, and Coghlan also spent time as the senior officer in command a squadron of light men of war protecting the Bahamas. In the early spring of 1810, the Elk was again off Havana, and in June she arrived at Kingston with a British merchantman whose mutinous crew had carried her into the Spanish port, but whose release he had been able to obtain.
On 27 November 1810, and by now in his mid-thirties, he was posted captain, and after returning to England with a convoy from Negril Bay he left the Elk in the following summer. Enjoying a brief period ashore, in November 1811 he was listed as a ‘fashionable arrival’ at Bath.
In February 1812 it was announced that Coghlan was to take passage out to the Mediterranean aboard the Armada 74, Captain Charles Grant, to serve as the flag-captain to his old patron and the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew. He took up the post on board the Caledonia 120 in April. On 18 August 1813 he led the fleet’s marines in a bayonet assault on the batteries at Cassis between Toulon and Marseilles, thereby facilitating the capture of some thirty vessels, and he was present at the skirmish with the Toulon Fleet on 5 November.
Seeking a more active role, in February 1814 he removed to the frigate Alcmene 38, although Captain Charles Gill acted briefly for him during July. On 11 April she joined the Pembroke 74, Captain James Brisbane, and the Aigle 36, Captain Sir John Louis, to chase a French convoy into Porto Maurizio in the Gulf of Genoa, bombard the town until the enemy surrendered, and then remove four of the vessels carrying the cargoes of fifteen others which were scuttled.
Coghlan remained in the Mediterranean with the Alcmene following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in April 1814, stationed at Malta, and visiting Marseilles, Genoa and Leghorn in the first months of 1815. When Napoleon returned to seize power in France, Coghlan performed a valuable service by reconnoitring the port of Toulon in early April, and sending a detailed report to the Admiralty on the activities of the naval forces based there. On 11 May the Alcmene formed part of a small squadron that arrived off Naples to confront Napoleon’s erstwhile ally and former marshal, King Joachim Murat. When the British threatened to bombard the city, King Joachim sent an emissary out to agree to a number of concessions. Marines from the Alcmene assisted in the occupation of Castle St. Elmo pending the arrival of the Austrian army, and her crew helped man two Neapolitan sail of the line which she escorted to Malta. Peace being re-established following the Battle of Waterloo, in October the Alcmene returned to Portsmouth and was paid off at Deptford in November.
Coghlan was created a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) on 4 June 1815, and in April 1817 he attended the Prince Regent’s levee. The next decade was spent ashore, (some of the time apparently at Ashton, Somerset) and included several visits to Bath, along with a further levee in in April 1822 when he was presented to the King by his old patron, Sir Edward Pellew (now ennobled as Admiral Lord Exmouth).
In the spring of 1826, he joined the Forte 44 at Devonport, but for some time the frigate remained inactive for want of seamen. By the early autumn she was cruising off the Cornish coast, but towards the end of September she was taken into the Hamoaze to inspect a damaged main mast. At the end of the following month, she sailed from Falmouth for Lisbon giving passage to Field Marshal Lord Beresford and his suite, and just before Christmas she departed for Rio de Janeiro carrying the minister plenipotentiary of Austria to the Brazilian court. In 1829 she was at Valparaiso, from where she sailed for Callao to protect British commerce, and this served as his base as Coghlan acted as the senior officer of the small squadron in the Pacific. During this period, the Forte captured a notorious pirate. Leaving Chile on 9 March 1830, she reached Portsmouth in mid-June with over 1.5 million dollars and Coghlan received praise for her rapid passage of the notorious Cape Horn. His command of the Forte ended in July 1830, and he did not see any further service, but he was awarded an annual pension of £150 in 1840.
Coghlan settled at Ryde on the Isle of Wight in Hampshire, from where he made the occasional visit along the coast to fashionable Brighton. He died at Ryde on 4 March 1844, and was interred in the vault of St. Thomas’ Church, attended by the chief mourner, Rear-Admiral Samuel Hood Inglefield.
He had married (probably in about 1802) the very young daughter of Charles Hay of Jamaica, they had a son, William Marcus, later Brig-Gen Sir William Marcus Coghlan RA of the East India Company’s Artillery, and a daughter, Susan Pellew Coghlan (named for Pellew’s wife). In later life Coghlan and his wife became estranged and lived apart for some years. His nephew, Francis Coghlan, entered the navy in May 1807, and was promoted commander in 1843.
Coghlan was extremely well regarded by Admirals Viscount Exmouth and the Earl of St. Vincent. During his early career he was known for saving the lives of a number of seamen who had fallen overboard into the sea. This bravery, combined with his exploits commanding small ships, earned him the nickname ‘Intrepid Jerry’, quoting an adjective St. Vincent had used in praising Coghlan.