John MacBride (c1735-1800)

As pugnacious in Parliament as he was at sea, MacBride enjoyed almost constant employment during his long career. His popularity among the common people was not universally shared by his colleagues, despite his great success in capturing privateers.

John Macbride was the son of Robert MacBride, a Presbyterian minister and of his wife, Jane Boyd, who moved their family from Scotland to Ballymoney, Country Antrim, shortly after his birth. His uncle, David MacBride, was an esteemed author on medical matters, and one of those doctors who tried to find a cure for scurvy.

After three years in the merchant service, in July 1754 MacBride (in his 19th year) entered the navy as an able seaman aboard the Garland 24, Captain Marriot Arbuthnot. That same month the ship went out to North America, where it remained for three years. On the Garland’s return to Britain in late 1757, Macbride was rated a master’s mate, a step up towards officer status. He then appears to have spent a short while in the Downs aboard the newly-commissioned Norfolk 74, Captain Sir Piercey Brett.

Admiral John MacBride

On 27 October 1758 he was commissioned lieutenant of the Stag 32, Captain Henry Angel, and by June 1761 he was in command of the hired cutter Grace, patrolling between Tynemouth and Berwick. During August, with the assistance of four armed boats from the Maidstone 28, Captain Dudley Digges, he cut a privateer out of Dunkirk without the loss of a single man while inflicting a dozen casualties on the enemy. Macbride is said to have personally shot the French captain through the head with a musket during the fray.

In December 1761, MacBride served briefly as a lieutenant aboard the Newark 80, Captain Charles Inglis. On being promoted commander on 7 April 1762, he was appointed to the fireship Grampus, and then to the sloop Vulture 14, which was among the many vessels laid up at Portsmouth in December, as the end of the Seven Years War approached.

Although the country was now at peace, MacBride (unlike many of his contemporaries) was still able to obtain posts aboard ship – in late May 1763 he recommissioned the sloop Cruizer 8 for service in the Downs. On 20 June 1765 he was posted captain of the frigate Renown 30, although he appears to have remained with the Cruizer for the next two months and did not take his new command to sea.

On 22 August 1765 he was appointed to commission the new frigate Jason 32 which was completing at Deptford Dockyard, where she had been copper sheathed to a new design. After service in the West Indies, in August 1766, she sailed for the South Atlantic to establish a new colony. MacBride took with him a supply of wort (a liquid used in the brewing of beer) that his uncle, a physician, had claimed would cure scurvy. In January 1767 the Jason arrived in the Falkland Islands in company with the bomb Carcass, Commander Thomas Jordon, and the storeship Experiment, to claim possession of the territory. After establishing the town of Port Egmont and undertaking a number of cruises around the islands, MacBride held a cordial meeting with the governor of the French settlers, who were living elsewhere on the archipelago. Naturally the French governor naturally did not accept the British claim to own the islands. The Jason came home from the Falklands in March 1767, and according to the newspapers she brought with her newly discovered minerals and (as an indication of the fascination generated by the mission) several Patagonian giants! Alas the latter proved to be a figment of an excited scribe’s imagination. His pamphlet, ‘A Journal of the Winds and Weather at the Falkland Islands’, was published in 1775.

After a few months shore leave, MacBride was appointed on 13 August 1767 to the sixth rate Seaford 20, serving on the Downs station and cruising along the south coast. In early June 1768 she briefly went aground on a sandbank off St. Helens; in October she took the sickly Marchioness of Tavistock and her brother, Rear-Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel to Lisbon, returning to Spithead in early November. Remaining in home waters, the Seaford was ordered to cruise with other vessels under command of Rear Admiral the Duke of Cumberland (promoted to rear-admiral at a ridiculously early age) in June and July 1769.

A few months later MacBride gave up the command, perhaps because in October 1769 at Bishop’s Hull, Taunton, he had married Charlotte Anne Harrison, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the late Captain Thomas Harrison of Leigham Manor, Eggbuckland, near Plymouth. They soon had a daughter, Charlotte Anne, who would marry the future Admiral Sir Willoughby Thomas Lake, but sadly, MacBride’s young wife died in 1771.

After a couple of years ashore, he was briefly appointed to the Arethusa 32 in March 1771, but he retained her only until 25 May. Two months later he commissioned the Southampton 32 at Plymouth, serving in home waters. During May 1772 his ship was despatched on a diplomatic mission with another frigate and a sloop to Helsingor, Denmark to collect King George’s sister, the 21-year-old Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark. She had been divorced from the King of Denmark following an affair that had seen her lover executed. The squadron landed her at Stade on the Elbe River from where she was escorted to Celle Castle in the Electorate of Hanover.

On 23 April 1773 MacBride was appointed to commission the newly launched frigate Orpheus 32, being present at the fleet review at Spithead in June. He briefly served under Vice-Admiral Lord George Edgcumbe in home waters. At the end of February 1774, he received orders to sail for the Guinea coast as a replacement for the Rainbow 44, Captain Thomas Collingwood, which was believed lost, but an Admiralty express arrived at Plymouth as she was on the point of sailing with news that the Rainbow was safe. The Orpheus was paid off at Plymouth in August 1774 after further employment in home waters.

The widowed MacBride married for a second time when he wedded Ursula Folkes of Hillington Hall, Norfolk, on 14 July 1775. Their son, John David, would later become principal of Magdalene Hall (now Hertford College), at Oxford University.

Captain MacBride was in the action at the Battle of the Doggersbank in 1781

The American Revolutionary War

On 6 November 1776, with the American Revolutionary War escalating, MacBride was appointed to the Bienfaisant 64 at Plymouth, which was initially fitted as a guardship. Brought into active service a few months later, she was despatched with a convoy to Madeira in June 1777. A cruise with other men-of-war in the Channel followed, and on 28 August she captured the Boston privateer Tartar 24 in mid-Atlantic and escorted the prize to Newfoundland. Bn early November the Bienfaisant was back at Plymouth after a voyage of 23 days from Halifax.

In March 1778 the Bienfaisant lost her rudder in a gale, which forced her to return to port, and shortly afterwards she joined the Grand Fleet at Spithead. Formal hostilities with the French were just about to break out, and when the ship was sent to reconnoitre Brest, a French 74 and frigate leaving the port passed by peaceably . On 12 June she sailed from Spithead with the fleet under Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel, and she was present at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July. The Bienfaisant did not see much action; it was reported that the extreme long-range fire of the Duke 98, commanded somewhat erratically by Captain William Brereton, hindered her approach towards the enemy line. Following the battle, the Bienfaisant cruised off the French coast, in early August capturing (with the Valiant 74, Captain Hon. John Leveson-Gower) three richly-laden French West Indiamen bound for Le Havre. Curiously, six weeks later she took her namesake, another Bienfaisant, a homeward-bound French vessel from Saint-Domingue.

When called as a witness, MacBride vehemently supported Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel at the court martial in January 1779 that investigated that officer’s conduct of the Battle of Ushant. He continued with the Bienfaisant in the Grand Fleet under the orders of Admiral Sir Charles Hardy, serving in the strategic retreat up the Channel during August. After the combined fleet returned to Spain and France, he sailed in September to investigate a rumoured a French invasion force in Cancale Bay, only to find that it did not actually exist. The Bienfaisant then saw further service with Hardy’s fleet before putting into Plymouth towards the end of November.

In December 1779 MacBride’s ship joined Admiral Sir George Rodney’s fleet which sailed to the relief of Gibraltar. and she received the surrender of the Guipuzcoana 64 during the capture of a Spanish convoy on 8 January 1780. Further distinction followed at the Moonlight Battle off Cape St. Vincent on 16 January, where she engaged the Santo Domingo 70, which promptly blew up, showering MacBride’s ship with flaming debris that the wet conditions fortunately extinguished. In the same action, in which the Bienfaisant’s mizzen topmast was shot away but the ship suffered no casualties, she received the surrender of Admiral Don Juan de Langara’s flagship, the Fénix 80.

Daylight found the two vessels alone on the ocean – although MacBride placed a hundred men aboard his prize, he could do little else but lay to in the tempestuous conditions. Normally most of the enemy crew would be transferred to the capturing ship to avoid them retaking the prize, however when the Fénix was sent into Gibraltar under the Bienfaisant’s first lieutenant, Thomas Louis, MacBride allowed all the Spanish prisoners to remain on board. A smallpox epidemic raged aboard the Bienfaisant, and MacBride did not want to expose his Spanish prisoners to the disease. In return, Admiral de Langara honourably vowed not to attempt the recapture of his ship unless the Bienfaisant herself was captured. The noble behaviour of both officers under such circumstances was an example of the chivalrous way war was conducted. MacBride was deservedly sent home with Rodney’s despatches, although the duplicates carried by Captain Edward Thompson arrived before him.

Shortly after he rejoined the Bienfaisant in March 1780, the ship was badly damaged in a collision with the Ramillies 74 (Captain John Moutray) during a violent storm. MacBride was obliged to cut away her masts, and the vessel suffered a good deal of damage forward and shipped a lot of water. In early July, after being repaired at Plymouth, she escorted a small convoy to Ireland, arriving back at the port a few weeks later with a richly laden Saint-Domingue ship. The prize had previously been captured by the Channel Fleet, and then retaken by a French 64, before MacBride captured her again off Brest.

Returning to Irish waters, the Bienfaisant was ordered to seek out the French privateer Comte d’Artois 64, (originally a French East Indiaman) which had been creating havoc with the local trade. In an action lasting over an hour on 13 August 1780, the larger French crew of over six hundred men attempted to board but the Bienfaisant’s crew held them off before bombarding their enemy into submission. The French colours came down shortly after the arrival on the scene of the Charon 44, Captain Thomas Symonds. The French suffered fifty-six casualties in this action in return for three British killed and twenty-two wounded, and the Bienfaisant and her prize eventually reached Plymouth on 22 August. Strangely, three months later MacBride captured a Dunkirk privateer by the name of the Comtesse d’Artois (18) off the southern coast of Ireland. Rejoining the Channel Fleet, the Bienfaisant was damaged by a late November storm, and became detached from the rest of the force. Avoiding the French fleet that she ran into off Cape Finisterre on 4 December whilst it was sailing from Cadiz to Brest, she arrived at Plymouth at the end of the year.

In January 1781 MacBride was ordered to recommission the recently captured French frigate Artois 40 at Chatham. His new command (considered an outstanding example of her type) sailed for Scotland in April with a convoy destined for the Baltic. The frigate and her charges were still in Leith Roads near Edinburgh in May when news that a Dutch fleet was at sea was received, and so MacBride temporarily rescinded the convoy’s sailing orders. He later commanded the Artois at the Battle of the Dogger Bank on 5 August, firing two or three broadsides at the Dutch line before being ordered to protect a convoy that the North Sea fleet was escorting home. Following the battle, he temporarily assumed the command of the Princess Amelia 80 in place of the fallen Captain John Macartney. It was considered necessary to have an experienced officer in command in case the Dutch attempted to recommence the action, but after reaching port MacBride returned to the Artois.

Thereafter, MacBride led a squadron which maintained a watch on the Dutch on the Texel. It was reported that he and members of his crew disguised themselves as fishermen to reconnoitre the anchorage aboard a captured fishing vessel. When the Artois was damaged in a gale at the beginning of October 1781 she sailed to Sheerness for repairs. He was back at sea within a fortnight, and on 3 December, in the latitude of Flamborough Head, he took two beautiful Dutch 24-gun privateers from Flushing, the Hercules and Mars, losing one man killed and six wounded whilst inflicting casualties of twenty-two men killed and thirty-five wounded. The prizes were carried into the Humber, where he was promptly awarded the freedom of Hull.

In January 1782 the Artois captured the Cherbourg lugger privateer Prince de Salem 10, which she carried into Torbay. While anchored there MacBride met Lieutenant-General Lord Cornwallis, who had just returned to England from his critical defeat at the Battle of Yorktown . Joining Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington’s division in the Channel Fleet, the Artois was present at the capture of two French sail of the line on 20 April. During May reports were received that the Artois had been captured whilst reconnoitring very close into Brest, but although these proved false, her escape from the enemy on that occasion was nevertheless celebrated as a near-run thing.

MacBride ended the American Revolutionary War as captain of the impress service in Ireland whilst the Artois cruised off the coast, initially under the command of her first lieutenant, and then by her acting-captain, Edward Pellew . Such was his fame that he was celebrated at a theatre in Dublin during June 1782, with many of the assembly sporting ‘MacBride cockades’. By November he was back in London to attend a levée, where he gave the King an account of his success in recruiting seamen in Ireland.

The Years of Peace

In 1784 the ever active MacBride entered the House of Commons

During the early stages of the peace, MacBride commissioned the new Bristol-built frigate Druid 32 in June 1783, cruising in the Irish Sea for a few months in early 1784. He gave up the command on being elected one of the two M.P.s for Plymouth on 27 April 1784. He proved to be an active member of the House of Commons, speaking regularly and passionately on military matters, and sitting for the next two years on a commission with Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington and Captain Sir John Jervis which investigated the defensive fortifications at Plymouth and Portsmouth, finding them to be inadequate. He also made the case that no more 64-gun ships of the line should be built, commented on the coppering of warships, and advocated for the use of carronades. In August 1787 he visited Cherbourg to observe the French improvements of that port, and in 1788 he spoke in parliament against Admiral Lord Howe during a dispute over the retirement of admirals.

Meanwhile, during the Dutch Armament in 1787 MacBride had commissioned the Cumberland 74 as a guardship at Plymouth and he remained in command of this ship for several years. During 1789 the Cumberland was attached to Commodore Samuel Granston Goodall’s squadron of observation in the Channel, and she participated in the Naval Review at Plymouth on 18 August. During 1790 MacBride’s ship formed part of Admiral Lord Howe’s fleet during the Spanish Armament, when MacBride boasted that his influence in the north-west of Ireland meant that he would be able to man the entire Plymouth squadron if so required.

On 27 June 1790, after what was described as a ‘violent’ contest of five days, MacBride lost his parliamentary seat at Plymouth, coming bottom of the poll with 78 votes, which was two below the second candidate and 34 behind Captain Alan Gardner. The unsuccessful MacBride left the hustings in style, aboard a six-oared barge that was towed around the town to the acclamation of the mob. Believing that some of the electors of his opponents were ineligible to vote, he named them in a newspaper advertisement, giving rise to a series of conflicting accounts in the papers. He introduced a petition in the House of Commons to investigate possible vote-rigging but eventually withdrew it in March 1792.

While he was involved in the election, Captain Richard Bligh had acted in his stead on the Cumberland, but by mid-July MacBride had rejoined her at Torbay. Despite his loss, he was still popular in Plymouth – when he landed on the Barbican in September he was greeted with three cheers. After sailing for the Leeward Islands with Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish’s squadron in October, the Cumberland returned to Plymouth in February 1791, where MacBride was again greeted by a delighted populace and the ringing of church bells. Remaining in commission through the Russian Armament that year, the Cumberland was eventually paid off at Plymouth on 14 September.

The French Revolutionary War

On 1 February 1793, just before the start of the French Revolutionary War, MacBride was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. Nine days later he hoisted his flag aboard the frigate Iphigenia 32, Captain Patrick Sinclair, as the commander-in-chief in the Downs. Before he took up his post, he delivered a rousing speech to a patriotic political meeting at Deal that was widely reported in the newspapers. With the minor inconvenience of the loss of his furniture on a merchant vessel that had been captured by the French as it was coming around from Plymouth, he shifted his flag to whichever vessel was available in the Downs. At the end of March, he was ordered to blockade the port of Ostend, and the enemy prizes that flowed into the Downs, provided both prize money and news from the Continent. By the end of April his flag was settled on the familiar Cumberland, Captain Thomas Louis, which remained in the Downs until June when she departed for Portsmouth. At about this time he was presented an expensive smallsword by The Committee for Encouraging the Capture of Privateers, probably for his successes in the previous war. This elaborate weapon is now in the collection of the National Maritime Museum.

After commanding a division of the Channel Fleet in its cruise from July to August 1793, MacBride was sent to reconnoitre the French port of Dunkirk aboard the Quebec 32, Captain Josias Rogers. He returned to the French coast shortly afterwards still aboard the Quebec but now in command of a small squadron, and during October he assisted General Sir Charles Grey in driving the French out of Ostend and Nieuport. In early November he was given orders to assist Major-General the Earl of Moira in an expedition to St. Malo in support of an insurrection by French royalist forces. Flying his flag aboard the Flora 36, Captain Sir John Borlase Warren, the squadron waited for a month at Guernsey to be joined by more troops. During this time, it became apparent that the royalists had retreated inland, and by the middle of the month gales had forced the squadron to return to England, the expedition having been abandoned.

By January 1794 MacBride was commanding a squadron numbering half a dozen vessels off the coast of France with his flag in various ships, including the Invincible 74, Captain Hon. Thomas Pakenham. His squadron was off Cherbourg in February where it chased a huge convoy of 96 merchantmen into the port, returning to Torbay at the end of the month when the weather turned rough. In March, he was appointed to an independent command to defend the Channel Islands, and to keep watch on naval forces between Dieppe and the Ile de Batz. Departing Portsmouth with a substantial squadron consisting of four sail of the line and three frigates, he was joined by another three frigates off Guernsey. Shortly afterwards he shifted his flag into the Druid 32, Captain Joseph Ellison, to release the ships of the line to Admiral Lord Howe’s Channel Fleet. In April he transferred to the Minotaur 74, Captain Thomas Louis, remaining in Plymouth Sound while his frigates undertook successful cruises at sea.

In May 1794 MacBride suffered a serious injury which temporarily took him away from his duties at sea. Ironically the accident occurred on land, for whilst riding to spend the night at his country seat at Leigham to the north-east of Plymouth, he was thrown from his horse and although partially caught by his companion, Captain John Clements of the Spitfire 8, his foot became entangled on the stirrup resulting in the breaking of his thigh bone. Confined to bed, he was temporarily succeeded by Rear-Admiral Sir James Wallace at sea but still administered the squadron. By July he was back at sea with his flag on the Minotaur, engaged in cruising off France with his squadron. In line with seniority, he was promoted vice-admiral on 4 July, and in August his ships were off Weymouth where the royal family were holidaying, and where his squadron’s appearance initially caused some alarm for the safety of the King.

On 12 September 1794, with the Minotaur under weigh at Portsmouth, MacBride was suddenly called up to London, and after a meeting at the Admiralty he put to sea to look into Cherbourg where ten thousand troops were found to be encamped. Returning to Torbay, he had further cruises off the French coast before the end of the year. In February 1795 he struck his flag aboard the Minotaur, and in March he visited Bristol to monitor progress on the raising of seamen at the port.

After a year on the beach (which might well have been as a result of the injuries incurred on being thrown from his horse), McBride was appointed in April 1796 to take command of the North Sea station on a temporary basis for Admiral Adam Duncan, who had requested leave of absence. At the end of May he departed the Nore with his flag flying aboard the Russell 74, Captain Thomas Larcom, in command of four sail of the line and two Russian sail of the line. By 4 June he was cruising off Bergen in Norway, and on 22 July he put out of Yarmouth on a cruise with eleven sail of the line amidst rumours that the Dutch were at sea. Regrettably, a fleet action that would have crowned his career did not materialise. In fact, when he anchored at Yarmouth on 4 August it was to reports that a dispute with the Russian admiral had only been resolved by the intercession of Admiral Duncan. He was soon back off the Texel in blockade before returning to Yarmouth in mid-September, whereupon Duncan resumed the command of the fleet. At about this time, he suffered a ‘paralytic seizure’, which probably was the reason he did not see further service. He was promoted to be a full admiral on 14 February 1799.

Admiral John MacBride died of a second paralytic seizure on 17 February 1800 at the Spring Garden Coffee House in London, three years after the loss of his second wife. The address in his will was given as Exmouth.

Politically, MacBride was held in high esteem by the leading Whig, Lord Rockingham, and was regarded as an opponent of William Pitt. Given his love of the ‘sport’ of cock-fighting, it was somewhat appropriate that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, described him as being an ‘exceedingly troublesome, busy, violent man, very bold but with little understanding’ Sandwich also reckoned him ‘an active officer and much patronised by Keppel.’ MacBride was also described as being a man of ‘blunt manners and rude elegance.’ Lord Keith said of him that he was ‘seldom himself after dinner, besides ill-tempered and opiniated’. This implies that he may have drunk to excess in social situations. However, there is no doubt that he was beloved by the press for his enterprise and energy, and that he was popular with the people of Ireland and Plymouth. Perhaps appropriately, a pub called ‘The Admiral MacBride’ continues to commemorate his memory in his adopted city.

• My grateful thanks to Richard Grylls for the hitherto un-published information regarding MacBride’s first wife. Should you wish to view Richard’s entertaining and comprehensive history of the Prestwood family of Exeter and North Huish I would be delighted to put you in touch.