HMS Centurion was a 50-gun Salisbury-class fourth rate of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Admiral Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The action of 18 October 1806 was a minor naval engagement during the Napoleonic Wars, fought between the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Caroline and a Dutch squadron at the entrance to Batavia harbour on Java in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle the Dutch frigate Maria Riggersbergen was left unsupported by the remainder of the squadron and, isolated, was forced to surrender. Captain Peter Rainier, the British commander, was subsequently free to remove his prize from within sight of the Dutch port when the remainder of the Dutch squadron refused to engage Caroline and their crews deliberately grounded the ships to avoid capture. He also returned many prisoners taken previously in a captured brig.
The action of 26 July 1806 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars fought off the southern coast of the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle, a small British squadron attacked and defeated a Dutch force defending a valuable convoy, which was also captured. The British force—consisting of the frigate HMS Greyhound and brig-sloop HMS Harrier under the command of Captain Edward Elphinstone—was initially wary of the Dutch, mistaking the Dutch East Indiaman merchant ship Victoria for a ship of the line. Closer observation revealed the identity of the Dutch vessels the following day and Elphinstone led his frigate against the leading Dutch warship Pallas while Harrier engaged the merchant vessels and forced them to surrender. Only the corvette William escaped, taking no part in the engagement.
The Java campaign of 1806–1807 was a minor campaign during the Napoleonic Wars by British Royal Navy forces against a naval squadron of the Kingdom of Holland, a client state of the French Empire, based on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. Seeking to eliminate any threat to valuable British merchant convoys passing through the Malacca Straits, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew determined in early 1806 that the Dutch naval forces based at Java, which included several ships of the line and three frigates, had to be defeated to ensure British dominance in the region. Lacking the forces to effect an invasion of the Dutch colony, Pellew instead sought to isolate and blockade the Dutch squadron based at Batavia in preparation for raids specifically targeting the Dutch ships with his main force.
The Raid on Batavia of 27 November 1806 was a successful attempt by a large British naval force to destroy the Dutch squadron based on Java in the Dutch East Indies that posed a threat to British shipping in the Straits of Malacca. The British admiral in command of the eastern Indian Ocean, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, led a force of four ships of the line, two frigates and brig to the capital of Java at Batavia, in search of the squadron, which was reported to consist of a number of Dutch ships of the line and several smaller vessels. However the largest Dutch ships had already sailed eastwards towards Griessie over a month earlier, and Pellew only discovered the frigate Phoenix and a number of smaller warships in the bay, all of which were driven ashore by their crews rather than engage Pellew's force. The wrecks were subsequently burnt and Pellew, unaware of the whereabouts of the main Dutch squadron, returned to his base at Madras for the winter.
The Raid on Griessie was a British attack on the Dutch port of Griessie on Java in the Dutch East Indies in December 1807 during the Napoleonic Wars. The raid was the final action in a series of engagements fought by the British squadron based in the Indian Ocean against the Dutch naval forces in Java. It completed the destruction of the Dutch squadron with the scuttling of three ships of the line, the last Dutch warships in the region. The British squadron—under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew—sought to eliminate the Dutch to safeguard the trade route with China, which ran through the Straits of Malacca and were in the range of Dutch raiders operating from the principal Javan port of Batavia. In the summer of 1806, British frigates reconnoitred Javan waters and captured two Dutch frigates, encouraging Pellew to lead a major attack on Batavia that destroyed the last Dutch frigate and several smaller warships. Before the Batavia raid, however, Dutch Rear-Admiral Hartsinck had ordered his ships of the line to sail eastwards, where they took shelter at Griessie, near Sourabaya.
Hugh Downman was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of admiral.
Rear-Admiral James Walker CB, CvTE was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Rear-Admiral James Macnamara was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
John Halsted was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Sir Courtenay Boyle, KCH was an officer of the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1807 he served as a Member of Parliament for Bandon.
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Dashwood KCB was a distinguished British officer, who served in the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. He had a long and prestigious naval career, gaining his own command by the last stages of the French Revolutionary Wars. He took part in a number of famous naval battles during his career, such as the Battle of the Saintes, the Glorious First of June and the Battle of Tory Island, where he received the sword of the French commodore, Jean Bompart. His record also includes extensive operations in the West Indies and the Baltic Sea, followed by the expedition to New Orleans in 1815.
The Macau Incident was an inconclusive encounter between a powerful squadron of French and Spanish warships and a British Royal Navy escort squadron in the Wanshan Archipelago off Macau on 27 January 1799. The incident took place in the context of the East Indies campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars, the allied squadron attempting to disrupt a valuable British merchant convoy due to sail from Qing Dynasty China. This was the second such attempt in three years; at the Bali Strait Incident of 1797 a French frigate squadron had declined to engage six East Indiamen on their way to China. By early 1799, the French squadron had dispersed, with two remaining ships deployed to the Spanish Philippines. There the frigates had united with the Spanish Manila squadron and sailed to attack the British China convoy gathering at Macau.
HMS Caroline was a 36-gun fifth-rate Phoebe-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She was designed by Sir John Henslow and launched in 1795 at Rotherhithe by John Randall. Caroline was a lengthened copy of HMS Inconstant with improved speed but more instability. The frigate was commissioned in July 1795 under Captain William Luke to serve in the North Sea Fleet of Admiral Adam Duncan. Caroline spent less than a year in the North Sea before being transferred to the Lisbon Station. Here she was tasked to hunt down or interdict French shipping while protecting British merchant ships, with service taking her from off Lisbon to Cadiz and into the Mediterranean Sea. In 1799 the ship assisted in the tracking of the French fleet of Admiral Étienne Eustache Bruix, and in 1800 she participated in the blockade of Cadiz.
Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Hart was a British naval officer and diplomat of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After a brief stint in the East India Company he joined the Royal Navy in 1796 on Sir Edward Pellew's frigate HMS Indefatigable, participating in the action of 13 January 1797 before following Pellew to the ship of the line HMS Impetueux where he experienced a mutiny before taking part in a number of cutting out expeditions and the Ferrol Expedition. At the Peace of Amiens Hart transferred to the ship of the line HMS Foudroyant in the Mediterranean Sea where he was promoted to lieutenant and joined Sir John Gore's frigate HMS Medusa, in which he participated in the action of 5 October 1804 before sailing to India in 1805. There he was reunited with Pellew who made him his flag lieutenant and appointed him to a succession of acting commands, including to that of the frigate HMS Caroline in which he played an important role in the Raid on Griessie in 1807.
Admiral Benjamin William Page was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who served extensively on the East Indies Station. He joined the Royal Navy in 1778 on board the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, his patron. He sailed with Hughes to the East Indies and participated in the series of naval battles against the French that culminated in the Battle of Cuddalore in 1783. Page returned to England in 1785 and was promoted to lieutenant. His first appointment as such was in the frigate HMS Astraea commanded by Captain Peter Rainier. Rainier also became a patron of Page, who transferred with him to the ship of the line HMS Monarch in 1790 and then recommended him for further employment elsewhere. After another period of service in the East Indies, Page was again taken up by Rainier as a lieutenant, this time on the ship of the line HMS Suffolk, in 1793. Page served as Rainier's temporary flag captain in Suffolk and fought at the invasion of Ceylon in 1795 before being given command of the sloop HMS Hobart. In Hobart Page used his extensive knowledge of the East Indies to navigate Rainier's fleet to the Moluccas and Amboyna Island, which they captured.
John Spratt Rainier was an officer in the Royal Navy, rising to the rank of Rear-Admiral, and Member of Parliament for Sandwich from 1808 to 1812.
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Richardson was a British naval officer. He served 63 years in the Royal Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Rear-Admiral Sir John Marshall was a Royal Navy officer. Having joined the navy in 1800, he fought at the Raid on Batavia as a lieutenant in 1806 and was promoted to commander in 1812 while serving at the Siege of Riga. He was given a command on the East Indies Station and took passage there on HMS Java. Java was captured by USS Constitution in December and Marshall was unable to assume command. Subsequently released in a prisoner exchange, he was instead given command of HMS Shamrock in 1813. In December he was given command of a squadron of gunboats in the North Sea to assist in the attack and capture of Glückstadt, which was completed on 5 January.
