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Sir Manley Dixon | |
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![]() Dixon as a vice-admiral | |
Born | January 3, 1757 |
Died | February 8, 1837 80) [1] Exmouth, Devon | (aged
Allegiance | ![]() |
Service/ | ![]() |
Commands held | South America Station Plymouth Command |
Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War [ citation needed ] French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars |
Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath |
Admiral Sir Manley Dixon, KCB (3 January 1757; 8 February 1837) [1] was a prominent Royal Navy officer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Born into a military family in the late 1750s or early 1760s, Dixon joined the Navy and served as a junior officer in the American Revolutionary War [ citation needed ], gaining an independent command in the last year of the war. Promoted to captain seven years later[ citation needed ], Dixon then served in the French Revolutionary Wars in the Channel Fleet and off Ireland until 1798, when he gained command of the 64-gun HMS Lion with the Mediterranean Fleet. Employed in the blockade of Cartagena, on 15 July 1798 Lion fought four Spanish frigates and successfully captured one, Santa Dorothea.[ citation needed ] Transferred to the Siege of Malta later the same year, Dixon remained off the island for two years, capturing the French ship of the line Guillaume Tell at the action of 31 March 1800.[ citation needed ] After the Peace of Amiens, Dixon remained in various active commands but saw no action and later retired, advancing to a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and a full admiral.
According to various sources[ citation needed ], Manley Dixon was born in either 1757 or 1760 into a military family: his brother George W. Dixon became a British Army Major-General serving with the Royal Artillery.[ citation needed ] Joining the Navy at a young age, Dixon served throughout the American Revolutionary War [ citation needed ] and by 1782 was a commander with the sloop HMS Jamaica in the Caribbean and the following year took over HMS Tobago. He saw little service during the peace of 1783–1793, although in 1790 he was promoted to post captain. His daughter Frances Elizabeth Dixon was born in 1784 [2] and his son Manley Hall Dixon was born in 1786. [3] In 1793 Dixon took command of the sixth rate HMS Porcupine off Ireland and later moved to the frigate HMS Espion in the Channel Fleet. In 1798, Dixon sailed in the 64-gun ship of the line HMS Lion for the Mediterranean Fleet under Vice-Admiral Earl St Vincent based in the Tagus. There he was assigned to the blockade of Cartagena and on 15 July 1798 fought an action against four Spanish frigates, successfully dividing the squadron and capturing the Santa Dorothea. [4]
Later in the year, Lion was attached to the squadron blockading Valletta during the Siege of Malta, remaining on the station for two years. In March 1800, the French ship of the line Guillaume Tell attempted to break out of Valletta and was intercepted by a British squadron including Lion. During the ensuing battle Dixon was heavily engaged and inflicted severe damage on his French opponent, which was eventually forced to surrender.[ citation needed ] In August 1802 during the Peace of Amiens, Lion returned to Portsmouth and Dixon was briefly placed in reserve. [4]
When the Napoleonic Wars broke out in 1803, Dixon returned to service as captain of the 74-gun HMS Sceptre and in 1804 transferred to HMS Queen in the Channel Fleet.[ citation needed ] In 1808 he was promoted to rear-admiral and raised his flag in HMS Temeraire in the Baltic Sea. In 1810 [5] his first wife Christiana Sophia Dixon died suddenly while at dinner with friends in Deal. In 1812 he was transferred to the Brazilian station in HMS Montagu and remained there until the end of the war, receiving a promotion to vice-admiral in 1813 and returning to Britain in 1815 on board HMS Valiant.[ citation needed ] Entering semi-retirement, Dixon did not return to the Navy and although he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in August 1819 and was promoted to full admiral in 1825, he never again commanded at sea. He was Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth from 1830 to 1833. [6] Admiral Dixon died in February 1837 of influenza at his home in Exmouth, Devon. [4]
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The action of 15 July 1798 was a minor naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought off the Spanish Mediterranean coast by the Royal Navy ship of the line HMS Lion under Captain Manley Dixon and a squadron of four Spanish Navy frigates under Commodore Don Felix O'Neil. Lion was one of several ships sent into the Western Mediterranean by Vice-Admiral Earl St Vincent, commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet based at the Tagus in Portugal during the late spring of 1798. The Spanish squadron was a raiding force that had sailed from Cartagena in Murcia seven days earlier, and was intercepted while returning to its base after an unsuccessful cruise. Although together the Spanish vessels outweighed the British ship, individually they were weaker and Commodore O'Neil failed to ensure that his manoeuvres were co-ordinated. As a result, one of the frigates, Santa Dorotea, fell out of the line of battle and was attacked by Lion.
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The action of 31 March 1800 was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought between a Royal Navy squadron and a French Navy ship of the line off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. By March 1800 Valletta, the Maltese capital, had been under siege for eighteen months and food supplies were severely depleted, a problem exacerbated by the interception and defeat of a French replenishment convoy in mid-February. In an effort to simultaneously obtain help from France and reduce the number of personnel maintained in the city, the naval commander on the island, Contre-amiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, ordered his subordinate Contre-amiral Denis Decrès to put to sea with the large ship of the line Guillaume Tell, which had arrived in the port shortly before the siege began in September 1798. Over 900 men were carried aboard the ship, which was to sail for Toulon under cover of darkness on 30 March.
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The Croisière de Bruix was the principal naval campaign of the year 1799 during the French Revolutionary Wars. The expedition began in April 1799 when the bulk of the French Atlantic Fleet under Vice-Admiral Étienne Eustache Bruix departed the base at Brest, evading the British Channel Fleet which was blockading the port and tricking the commander Admiral Lord Bridport into believing their true destination was Ireland. Passing southwards, the French fleet narrowly missed joining with an allied Spanish Navy squadron at Ferrol and was prevented by an easterly gale from uniting with the main Spanish fleet at Cádiz before entering the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean was under British control following the destruction of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, and a British fleet nominally under Admiral Earl St Vincent was stationed there. Due however to St. Vincent's ill-health, operational control rested with Vice-Admiral Lord Keith. As Keith sought to chase down the French, the Spanish fleet followed Bruix into the Mediterranean before being badly damaged in a gale and sheltering in Cartagena.
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