John Draper (1760-1813)
Lacking ‘interest’, Draper was well into his thirties before he achieved the rank of captain. His subsequent career was largely one of temporary and unexciting commands, but he ended his life as an agent for prisoners of war in Huntingdonshire, where he was highly regarded by the French inmates.
Draper may have been born in Crewkerne, Somerset, but his parents remain obscure. His entry and early service in the Navy are also unknown, although he was promoted lieutenant on 26 March 1780 . He seems to have been unemployed up until the ‘Spanish Armament’ of 1790 when on 24 May he was appointed to the Niger 32, Captain Thomas Farnham. Even then, the commission was cancelled while the frigate remained in dock at Woolwich. On 23 July he was appointed the eighth lieutenant of Vice-Admiral Alexander Hood’s flagship, the London 90, Captain William Domett. Two months later he transferred with those officers to the Royal Sovereign 100, but she was paid off in December.
In April of 1790 John Draper had married Dorothy Cupelo (1767-1837), daughter of a prosperous London glover with property in Aldgate. John and his wife Dorothy had at least six children; their eldest son John Gray Draper served as a lieutenant RN before leaving the service to become a maltster in Crewkerne, a town long associated with the Draper family.
When the French Revolutionary War began in February 1793, he joined the Royal George 100 as second lieutenant, again serving under Vice-Admiral Hood and Captain Domett. He had risen to be first lieutenant by February 1794, in which capacity he fought at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. He was accordingly promoted commander on 4 July, (as were all the other first lieutenants from the battle), being appointed to the cutter Trimmer 14 for purposes of rank only.
In early 1795 at the age of 35 Draper was appointed to the fireship Incendiary 14, putting to sea in January with the Channel Fleet, and commanding her at the Battle of Groix on 23 June, even though he had officially been posted captain three weeks earlier. He transferred to a ship more appropriate to his new rank, the Porcupine 24, in early August. His command arrived at Plymouth on 30 September, having retaken the packet Walsingham from her French prize crew off Lorient. At the end of the month the Porcupine sailed from Plymouth for Quiberon Bay with livestock and provisions for the Army, and in January 1796 she travelled to Guernsey to bring home the crew of the Amethyst 36, Captain Thomas Affleck, which had recently been wrecked on Alderney. On 20 March she captured the fast-sailing St. Malo privateer Coureur 14 and her prize (a British merchantman) off the Lizard. July saw her transport money from Portsmouth to Plymouth to pay the dockyard workers. Ordered out to the Bahamas, in November she was dismasted and incurred much damaged when a hurricane struck her anchorage. The Porcupine eventually arrived at Portsmouth in April 1797, having given passage to the returning governor of the Bahamas, Lord Dunmore.Here she was allowed by the fleet mutineers to sail for Plymouth for a refit, where she took the news that the mutiny at Spithead was yet to be resolved, leading to an outbreak at the Devonshire port. On 26 April Draper set off for the Admiralty in London with Rear-Admiral Sir John Orde’s letter with details of the outbreak.
In June 1797 Draper was presented to the King by Rear-Admiral Sir John Orde on his appointment to command that officer’s flagship, the Princess Royal 90, which was fitting out at Portsmouth. She departed St. Helens on 9 October with several convoys to join the Mediterranean Fleet under Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent. She arrived at Lisbon two weeks later, and Orde was directed to undertake the blockade of Cadiz. Draper was soon reprimanded for a couple of minor infractions by the famously intolerant St Vincent, perhaps suffering by his association with Orde, who the commander-in-chief grew to dislike. In July 1798 it was reported that the Princess Royal was one of the two most disaffected ships in the Mediterranean Fleet, and when in October Orde was instructed to return to England by St Vincent, Draper was replaced aboard the Princess Royal by Captain John Dixon. Draper took passage back to England aboard the Colossus 74, Captain George Murray, which was wrecked in the Scilly Isles on 10 December. He was rescued from that vessel (as were all but one of her crew), but this event must have added to his woes at being replaced from his command.
In October 1799 he was appointed to commission the ex-French frigate Immortalite 40 , which had been captured by the Fisgard 38, Captain Thomas Byam Martin, a year earlier. She was still fitting out at Plymouth and had not gone to sea when Captain Hon. Henry Hotham assumed her command in January 1800.
Draper subsequently commanded the Glory 98 in an acting capacity for Captain Thomas Wells in the early months of 1801, serving in the Channel Fleet with frequent visits to the Devonshire ports before Wells appears to have rejoined her towards the end of May.
For the next three years Draper remained ashore, until in August 1804 (fifteen months after the start of the Napoleonic Wars) he was appointed to the recently purchased East Indiaman Weymouth 44. In February 1805 she sailed from Portsmouth with an East Indies convoy, but encountered such bad weather that after passing through the Needles one of her charges was wrecked. In the confusion the merchant ships lost sight of the Weymouth, and there was much concern for her safety. However, she was soon seen by other vessels, and despite his ship’s poor sailing qualities Draper hoped to catch up with his lost convoy. In the event she sailed all the way to India alone, and while returning to England from Madras with another convoy two of her charges separated from her but made it safely to St. Helena. To compound a sorry state of affairs, on 12 February 1806 whilst heading for Portsmouth she drove ashore on the Chichester shoals, but she was got off without much injury. Shortly afterwards Draper left the Weymouth, and she was reduced from a frigate to a storeship.
In July 1806 he was appointed to the 30-year-old Ruby 64, serving in the North Sea and based at Great Yarmouth. Late in the year his ship spent two and half months refitting at Sheerness, but after being released from dock on 15 December she ran aground on an uncharted sandbank while going down the Thames. This event caused so much damage that she had to enter the Medway for immediate repairs and then return to Sheerness on 3 February 1807 for further docking. In mid-March she sailed once more for Great Yarmouth, and she served with the expedition to Denmark, which capitulated at Copenhagen on 7 September 1807. In December she was one of five sail of the line that sailed from Plymouth under Commodore Peter Halkett to join Rear-Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith off Lisbon. On 12 September 1808 she was part of the force (under Rear-Admiral Charles Tyler) escorting the Russian fleet from Lisbon to Portsmouth, where they were to be interned under a provision of the Convention of Cintra. Draper left the Ruby in December, and he did not see any further active service.
In August 1811 he became the agent for prisoners of war in Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire), assuming command of the camp at Norman Cross, near Stilton. Superintending prisoner of war establishments was an onerous task given to senior post-captains, who were responsible for overseeing the humane imprisonment of several thousand enemy soldiers and sailors. He died in this post eighteen months later on 23 February 1813 in his 53rd year. Had he lived another 16 months, he would have become a rear-admiral by seniority. Draper was greatly respected by his charges: the French prisoners of war at Norman Cross mounted a tablet in the nearby St. Peter’s Church, Yaxley, ‘in testimony of their esteem and gratitude for his humane attention to their comforts during that too short period’.