Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empireFraser, Edward
History
Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire
Fraser, Edward
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Naval battles -- Great Britain
Other Kentish men of note associated directly with the Old Navy were Sir
Thomas Spert, founder of Trinity House, and captain of the _Harry Grace
à Dieu_ when Henry the Eighth crossed the Straits of Dover in her to
the Field of the Cloth of Gold; Sir William Hervey, of Kidbrooke, “who
greatly distinguished himself in boarding one of the vessels composing
the Spanish Armada,” and was raised to the peerage as Lord Hervey; old
Captain Dick Fogg, of Repton, near Ashford, captain under Charles the
First of the tenth whelp and the _Victory_ and of other men-of-war of
note; Kit Fogg, his son, who fought for England in half a score of
sea-fights under Charles the Second and down to the time of Queen Anne;
Christopher Gunman, a bold fireship and frigate captain in the Dutch
wars, captain of the Duke of York’s flagship at Solebay, who later on
nearly drowned the future James the Second; George Legge, afterwards the
Earl of Dartmouth, whose valour in battle at Solebay made his fortune, a
member of a Kent county family of long descent; two notable Commodores,
two St. Lo’s of Northfleet; Commodore Boys of the _Luxborough_ galley;
Sir Piercey Brett, who as a lieutenant went round the world with Anson,
and lived to be one of the most distinguished officers of his day; Sir
Thomas Boulden Thompson, who fought under Nelson at Teneriffe, at the
Nile, and at Copenhagen. These are a few names taken at random.
Sir Sidney Smith, the “Hero of Acre,” the man who made Bonaparte, as the
Emperor himself put it, “miss his destiny,” was of Kentish birth and
family, and learned his “three R’s” at Tunbridge School; and it was to
Lord Barham, as First Lord of the Admiralty, that Nelson reported himself
in September, 1805, when he volunteered to shorten his leave at home and
go out at once to fight the enemy at Trafalgar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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