Henry Hart (Royal Navy officer)

The action of 13 January 1797 in which Hart took part on board HMS Indefatigable

Hart left the East India Company for the Royal Navy in March 1796, becoming a midshipman on the frigate HMS Indefatigable under Captain Sir Edward Pellew in the English Channel.[Note 1][3][4] As such he participated in the action of 13 January 1797 where Indefatigable and the frigate HMS Amazon drove the French ship of the line Droits de l'Homme ashore, destroying her, in which action nineteen men of Indefatigable were injured.[2]

Having become a follower of Pellew, Hart joined him in his new command, the ship of the line HMS Impetueux, in March 1799.[Note 2][2] He was rated as an able seaman upon joining Impetueux but was restored to his rank as a midshipman on 15 March.[8] On 31 May the crew of Impetueux (who already had a reputation for insubordination) mutinied unsuccessfully against Pellew in Bantry Bay.[9] Hart was midshipman of the watch at the time the mutiny started and identified a number of the mutineers at the court martial in June.[9][8] While spending most of his time in Impetueux on the blockade of Belle Île, Hart distinguished himself on several occasions.[2] On 29 July he took part in the successful cutting out of the French brig Cerbere in Port Louis and then on 29 August he participated in the similar cutting out of the French brig La Guépe, which was "desperately defended", in Vigo Bay.[10][2] He also served in the Ferrol Expedition in August; while Impetueux bombarded fortifications he was given command of a small flat-bottomed boat and brought troops ashore on the beaches of the landings.[2][8]

Hart left Impetueux when the Peace of Amiens began in 1802, joining instead the ship of the line HMS Foudroyant which was the flagship of Admiral Lord Keith in the Mediterranean Fleet.[4] He completed his necessary time of service as a midshipman on Foudroyant and was made an acting lieutenant on 2 April 1802 in the frigate HMS Medusa under Captain John Gore, still in the Mediterranean.[4][11] His new rank was confirmed on 12 June.[2] He spent the rest of the Peace sailing on Medusa visiting all the French and Spanish ports in the Sea and acting as an escort to important personages such as Ferdinand IV and Sir William Drummond.[11] Hart rose to become the first lieutenant of Medusa.[2] As such on one occasion after the Napoleonic Wars had begun, Medusa discovered two French privateer feluccas chasing the British cutter British Fair off Gibraltar.[12] Upon the attack of Medusa the feluccas split up and attempted to flee but as Medusa passed the first of them closely Hart was ordered to board her and he did so successfully while Medusa destroyed the other ship with her guns.[12] The action was witnessed by Gibraltar's garrison and the crew were cheered by it as they returned.[12] Hart continued in Medusa after this and as such participated in the action of 5 October 1804 where Medusa and three other frigates captured three Spanish frigates and destroyed a fourth in the Atlantic Ocean.[2][13]

The following November Medusa captured the Spanish frigate Matilda which had on board a cargo of quicksilver worth £200,000.[2] Hart was given command of Matilda and sailed her into Portsmouth where she and her cargo could be further evaluated.[10] Re-joining Medusa soon after, he sailed on 15 April 1805 to India with the new Governor-General of India, Lord Cornwallis on board, and arrived there in July.[2][14] His old captain Edward Pellew, described as his "sincere and valuable friend", was now a rear-admiral and Commander-in-Chief, East Indies and with Hart in Madras he took him from Medusa to serve as his flag lieutenant on board the ship of the line HMS Culloden.[Note 3][2][4] Hart continued to serve as such until August 1806 when, still a lieutenant, Pellew began to appoint him to a series of acting commands on the station.[2][16]

Hart's first acting command came when he was given command of the frigate HMS Terpsichore as one of a series of lieutenants serving as her acting-captain after the death of her commanding officer in July.[2][17] After having moved on from Terpsichore, Hart's next command came in 1807 when he was transferred to the acting-command of the frigate HMS Duncan before again being replaced in a rotation of acting-captains.[4][18] Towards the end of 1807 Hart was again placed in an acting command role, this time of the frigate HMS Caroline.[2] Caroline was serving with Pellew's squadron off Java and in August, before Hart's arrival, she had reconnoitred the Dutch-controlled port of Griessie and discovered Dutch ships of the line at anchor there.[19] On 11 December Hart sailed Caroline with the rest of the squadron back to Griessie to attack it and destroy the Dutch force present.[2]

HMS Caroline, commanded by Hart in the Raid on Griessie

Hart was given command of the landings and of all seamen ashore during the attack, and he was successful in coordinating both of these aspects of the attack; the dockyard and storehouses were destroyed and the scuttled remains of the Dutch naval presence left in the East Indies burned.[2][20] This came to be known as the Raid on Griessie.[2] Caroline was used by Pellew as his flagship for some of the operation after Culloden grounded herself and her crew became intoxicated on a store of liquor.[16] When Culloden grounded Caroline was directly astern of her and it was thought that Caroline would either hit Culloden or have to run herself ashore to escape that, but through the quick use of a spare anchor the crisis was averted just before Caroline hit the flagship's stern.[21] Hart was praised for his good seamanship is avoiding the incident.[21] Around the same time as the Raid, Hart cut out a Dutch 14-gun sloop-of-war from Java's coast in broad daylight and soon afterwards participated in an action against a number of batteries and gun boats in the mouth of Manila Bay.[2]

Hart was superseded in command of Caroline by Captain Charles Gordon at the beginning of 1809 and was transferred to the acting-command of yet another frigate, HMS Fox.[22][23] On 23 March Hart sent Fox's boats in to a creek where they captured the French 8-gun privateer La Carravanne which had been attempting to make the journey to Surabaya.[23][19] Hart served in acting-command of Fox until 1811 when his health deteriorated to such an extent that he was forced to leave the East Indies and Pellew's command completely.[19][24]

Having served as an acting-captain for four years Hart expected that he had by this time been promoted fully to post-captain but found upon his return to England that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Mulgrave, had only signed off on his promotion to commander, dated 12 October 1807, for which he was "bitterly disappointed".[19][25][26] This meant that despite extensive experience in command of frigates Hart was not of the correct rank to truly command one, and as such in November 1810 his next command was the sloop-of-war HMS Thracian, which he was given only after Mulgrave was replaced as First Lord by Charles Philip Yorke.[19][2][27] In Thracian Hart served off the coast of Cherbourg for almost a year before being promoted to post-captain on 1 August 1811.[2][25]

HMS Revenge, Hart's first command as a post-captain

While now a post-captain Hart did not receive immediate employment, possibly due to his ill health; again he relied on the favour of one of his old commanders, this time of the newly promoted Rear-Admiral Sir John Gore.[28][26] Gore had been given a flagship, the ship of the line HMS Revenge, in the Mediterranean Fleet and chose Hart as his flag captain.[19] In order to facilitate this transfer Hart was given acting-command, on 10 December 1813, of the post ship HMS Cyrus which was fitting out at Plymouth Dockyard to also join the Mediterranean Fleet.[28][2] He joined the fleet in early 1814 and subsequently took command of Revenge on the Cadiz blockade and in the Adriatic Sea.[2][29] As such he took part in the blockade of Venice from 22 March which ended when Italy was surrendered by France, at which point the squadron Hart was a part of sailed for Corfu to oversee the handover of that island from the French to Britain on 8 June.[29] This process was completed on 28 June and two days later the squadron went to Minorca from where Hart and Revenge sailed for Spithead on 16 August, Gore having resigned his command upon the end of hostilities.[30] Hart paid off Revenge at Chatham Dockyard in the same month and again found himself unemployed.[Note 4][31]

After four years on land he was given command of the frigate HMS Sapphire on 27 August 1818.[2] Soon after his assumption of command Hart took Sapphire to the Leeward Islands Station.[32] Hart and Sapphire sailed for Latin America to watch over British interests in Porto Bello to secure them against the Spanish American wars of independence igniting in the continent.[26] Here he observed Gregor MacGregor's attack and capture of the port in April 1819.[2] While stationed in the Leeward Islands Hart accomplished a number of minor feats, including successfully crossing the Isthmus of Panama in only two days and acting as judge in a landmark case in Jamaica which saw two slave traders prosecuted for violating the Slave Trade Act 1807.[26] Soon after these events Hart was sent in Sapphire on a diplomatic mission to Cartagena where he assisted the Governor-General of South America who had escaped there from Mexico due to the Mexican War of Independence.[26][2] This was his last major service in the Americas before his health began to severely decline; this forced him to relinquish his command and return home to England, which he did by travelling as a passenger on the frigate HMS Tartar, arriving on 28 August 1820.[26][19] He would spend the next ten years ashore unemployed.[26]

HMS Melville in 1831 prior to Hart assuming command

In 1831 the East Indies and China Station was created and the now Vice-Admiral Sir John Gore was appointed as its first commander-in-chief.[2] For his flag-captain he again chose Hart who took command of Gore's flagship, the ship of the line HMS Melville, on 30 September.[2][33] In 1833 the vice-admiral gave Hart temporary command of the frigate HMS Imogene to sail to Zanzibar to speak with the Imaum of Muscat, Said bin Sultan, about the United States' monopoly on trade with that country and the possibility of British trade links being created.[26][2] Arriving in early 1834, his negotiations were successful and upon his departure from Zanzibar he was given the ex-East Indiaman Liverpool, which had been converted into a ship of the line, as a gift for William IV.[26][2][34][35] As well as this Hart was personally gifted an arabian horse which was put on board Liverpool.[36] He escorted the ship to Bombay from where she was sailed home to become HMS Imaum.[2] After returning from Zanzibar he wrote a report on his negotiations that reassured the British establishment, with the imaum's political allegiance to Britain still strong and his relationship with America purely commercial.[37]

Hart returned to England in Melville in July 1835, transporting the previous Governor of Bombay Lord Clare, when Gore's tenure as commander-in-chief ended.[2][26] He paid Melville off on 22 July and in reward for his services was subsequently made a Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order on 25 January 1836 and a Knight Bachelor on 23 February, giving him the title of Sir Henry Hart.[2][38] Melville was Hart's last active command in the Royal Navy; he received a Captain's Good-Service Pension on 12 April 1842 to further honour his service.[2]

In 1845 Hart was appointed a commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, London; a year later on 1 October 1846 he was promoted as a retired rear-admiral.[2] Hart was not kept on the active list of the navy because of an Admiralty regulation that required post-captains who held civil posts to either accept retirement when promoted, instead of staying on the active list, or lose their civil post.[39] Hart was against being placed on the retired list, a position "foreign to his feelings", but felt that that was the only option available to him.[39] Sir George Pechell brought up Hart's case in parliament in 1850, noting that other officers such as Sir Watkin Owen Pell, who Hart had served alongside as a commissioner, had not been forced to retire as Hart had; despite this precedent Hart was not reinstated on the active list and as such was never promoted higher than rear-admiral.[40][41][25]