John Elphinstone (1722-85)
Although he saw active service in two major conflicts and destroyed a French frigate in a single-ship engagement, Elphinstone is best remembered for the controversial two years he spent as an admiral in Catherine the Great’s Russian fleet.
Born in 1722, he was baptised in London, the only child of John Elphinstone (who was probably a captain in the merchant navy) , and of his wife Anne Williams. The family originated from Lopness in the Orkney Islands and was unconnected to the more famous line of Scottish aristocrats of the same name.
Elphinstone served initially in the merchant service before joining the Navy and earning a lieutenant’s commission on 23 August 1746, at the age of 24. Over the next ten years he served in this rank successively in the fireship Scipio 8, fourth-rate Oxford 50, and ships of the line Cumberland 66 and Royal Sovereign 100.
On 23 October 1750 he married Amelia Warburton. Together the couple would have six sons including John, a post captain, who died in 1801, Samuel William, who died as a captain in the Russian service in 1788, Thomas, who reached the same rank in the Royal Navy before his death in 1821, Robert-Phillip, who died as a post captain in 1822, and Major- General Sir Howard Elphinstone, who fought in the Peninsula War and died in 1846. They also had four daughters, the second of whom, Anna-Charlotta-Maria, married Captain Sir Francis John Hartwell. The family later settled at Bury House, at Alverstoke near Gosport.
After his stint aboard the Royal Sovereign, 100 (Captain William Boys) during the opening stages of the Seven Years War, Elphinstone was appointed acting commander of the buss London, engaged in conveying mail to the Netherlands in the early part of 1757 . On 5 May (now in his 35th year and eleven years after first being commissioned) his promotion to commander of the London was confirmed, and eighteen days later he joined the recently purchased sloop Salamander at Woolwich. This vessel was assigned to convoy duty: escorting the trade from the Nore to Hull in August, returning to the Thames in October, and sailing from the Humber to the Elbe in January 1758. When she arrived at Portsmouth at the end of April it was expected that she would be paid off and put out of commission, but instead she was converted into a fireship, with Elphinstone still in command. In late May she joined the force under Commodore Hon. Richard Howe in his campaign against the French Channel ports. In September, while on shore superintending the embarkation of the rearguard following the attack on St. Cas, Elphinstone was captured with three other captains – Joshua Rowley, Jervis Maplesden and William Paston. After a couple months as a prisoner-of-war, in December he was returned to Portsmouth aboard a cartel with other officers.
The Battle of Chesme
On 1 February 1759, Elphinstone was posted captain of the sixth-rate Eurus 24, arriving at Greenock, Scotland, on 3 March. On the last day of the month, he sailed with three troop transports for North America, where the Eurus joined Vice-Admiral Saunders’ fleet at the capture of Quebec. In early November she arrived at Halifax without her mizzen mast, which she had been forced to cut away in a storm.
Continuing in North American waters, in June 1760 Elphinstone moved to the Richmond 32 in succession to the Captain George Hamilton who had died of a quinsy; he brought that frigate from the St. Lawrence back to England a month later. On 24 January 1761 after an eleven-hour chase the Richmond brought the French frigate Félicité 32 to action off The Hague. The French vessel surrendered after a bitter fight that saw the enemy suffer a hundred casualties and both vessels drive ashore at Scheveningen. The Félicité was destroyed but the Richmond was refloated – the action resulted in French claims that Elphinstone should have been cashiered for breaking Dutch neutrality. To add to this success, the Richmond captured the French privateers Aucheur 10 on 11 July, and Epervier on 25 November. At the end of the year, she left Cadiz just prior to the outbreak of hostilities with Spain, and after looking into Corunna shortly afterwards to observe Spanish preparations, she took another French privateer, the Béarnoise 14 off Bayonne, on 24 January 1762.
In February 1762 the Richmond sailed to the West Indies with dispatches for Rear-Admiral George Rodney. British newspapers reported that while in passage she had captured a Spanish register (treasure) ship with a cargo including 24,000 dollars and sent her into Madeira. Arriving at Martinique on 21 March, Elphinstone surveyed the Old Bahama Straits north of Cuba, allowing Admiral Sir George Pocock’s fleet to pass safely through on their way to attack Havana. During the successful siege he acted as superintendent of the transport service, and at the end he was awarded the command of the Spanish prize Infanta 74, (taken at the surrender of the city), which he brought back to Portsmouth. Elphinstone commanded her until she was paid off in May 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War. Shortly afterwards, and in recognition of his conduct at Havana, he was presented to the King by the Earl of Sandwich.
On 6 October 1763 Elphinstone was appointed to the recommissioned guard-ship Firm 60 at Plymouth, retaining her for the customary three years, and he briefly commanded the frigate Pearl 32 between March and December 1768.
In the summer of 1769, the 47-year-old Elphinstone was one of a handful of British officers given permission by the Admiralty to join the Russian navy of Catherine the Great. In July he took passage to St. Petersburg with his sons John and Samuel, and there he was appointed to the rank of rear-admiral. In early 1770 his squadron of four dozen sail of the line suffered storm damage on a voyage from the Baltic to join the war against Turkey in the Mediterranean, and the ships entered Portsmouth for repairs lasting some weeks. While his ships were in Portsmouth Harbour he fell afoul of the British commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Francis Geary, who ordered him to discontinue the practice of using signal guns to set the watch.
Upon arriving off Greece at the end of May, Elphinstone attempted to bring about an engagement with a superior Turkish squadron in the Gulf of Naupila (the modern-day Nafplion). Although initially he forced the enemy to retreat, his officers refused to continue the action when he tried to attack them under protective batteries, and he was obliged to break off the attempt. On 5 July he participated in General-in-Chief Count Alexei Orlov’s defeat of a Turkish fleet in Chesme Bay. However, his preferred plan of attack was rejected, and even though he took little part in the battle, he later claimed credit for the victory while denigrating his colleagues, who included his fellow Scot Admiral Samuel Greig.
During his time in the Russian service, Elphinstone constantly fell out with Count Orlov over the limits to his authority. When his flagship Svyatoslav 80 was wrecked on a sandbank, Orlov sent him back to Russia on charges of negligence; foolishly he chose to wear a British rather than a Russian uniform when he appeared before the Empress. In short order he was obliged to leave her service (in July 1771), and contemporary Russian and British accounts of his time in Catherine’s navy were extremely contradictory. Arriving back in Britain from St. Petersburg in late November, he was presented to the King days later.
In early July 1774, Elphinstone won a case in the Court of the King’s Bench against a printer of an evening paper who had libelled his character as an officer, being awarded the sum of 500 guineas, (equivalent to about £75k in today’s money). In the same month he was appointed to command the guard-ship Egmont 74 at Portsmouth, participating in the summer cruises of 1774 and 1775, and going out on a cruise in the autumn of 1777 to combat American privateers. The Egmont was paid off in April 1778, just weeks before France and Britain opened hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.
In July 1778, he was appointed to the Magnificent 74, which was fitting out at Portsmouth, and which put out of the harbour for Spithead in the first week of September. Following a brief spell with the Grand Fleet in the Channel, in December she sailed for the Leeward Islands with Commodore Joshua Rowley’s reinforcements. On 6 July 1779 she fought at the Battle of Grenada, where she provided gallant support to the Medway 60. The Magnificent was also involved in Rear-Admiral Hyde Parker’s partial engagement with a French squadron on 18 December, and Elphinstone assisted Rear-Admiral Rowley in the capture of three French frigates from St. Lucia, with the Magnificent taking the Blanche 36. On 17 April 1780 she was stationed at the rear of the line at the Battle of Martinique and thus suffered only one man killed and ten wounded. She remained with the fleet for the Leeward Islands campaign, losing five men killed and twenty-three wounded in the skirmishes with the French during May. In the autumn she set off for England with the Jamaica convoy, being disabled in a storm off the Newfoundland Banks on 17 October and left with four feet of water in her hold. Taken into Portsmouth on 19 November, she was immediately paid off as a result of her poor condition.
Elphinstone commanded the Cambridge 80 from April to June 1781 at Plymouth before she too was paid off and taken into dock, and during December 1782 he joined the Atlas 90 when her captain, George Vandeput, gave up the command upon learning that she was to be fitted out for the West Indies. In the event, by the time Elphinstone joined the Atlas at Portsmouth, the American Revolutionary War had begun winding down, and rather than sailing for the West Indies, the ship travelled to Plymouth in early March 1783 to be paid off.
Captain Elphinstone died in his 63rd year on 28 February 1785 in Broad Street, Carnaby Market, London. His widow died a year later.
Although a brave and active officer, Elphinstone was also arrogant, hot-headed and a difficult subordinate. In the Russian service he sought to make himself the hero of every battle, as at the Battle of Chesme, where he took credit for the achievements of other British officers. Initially respected by Catherine the Great, on further acquaintance she described him as mad, impulsive and illogical.