RIGHT HONOURABLE
JAMES LORD GAMBIER,
Knight Grand Cross of the most Honourable Military Order of the Bath; President of the Church Missionary Society, and a Vice-President of the Naval Charitable, Marine, and other Societies: also of the Lock Hospital, the Asylum, and the African and Benevolent Institutions.
This nobleman is the second son of the late John Gambier, Esq., formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the Bahama Islands, by Miss Deborah Stiles, of the Island of Bermuda. His Lordship’s great-grandfather, Nicholas Gambier, left Caen in Normandy, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and settled in England, 1690; his eldest son was a Barrister at Law, and one of the counsel to the city of London.
The subject of this memoir, the second Admiral of the same name in the British Navy, was born at the Bahamas, Oct. 13, 1756, and went to sea at an early age. In 1778, we find him commander of the Thunder bomb, in which vessel he had the misfortune to be captured by the French fleet under Count d’Estaing. He was promoted to the rank of Post-Captain, Oct. 9, in the same year, and appointed to the command of the Raleigh, of 32 guns. In this frigate he was engaged in repelling the French attempt upon Jersey[1], and afterwards proceeded to the coast of America.
At the reduction of Charlestown, in South Carolina[2], Captain Gambier served on shore with the brigade of seamen and marines. In 1781, he captured the General Mifflin, American ship of war, mounting 20 guns, with a complement of 115 men.
From this period we find no mention of him until the year 1793, when a long, sanguinary, and expensive war with France took place[3], on which occasion Captain Gambier was immediately selected for employment, and appointed to the command of the Defence, of 74 guns, under the orders of Earl Howe.
- ↑ Jan. 6, 1781.
- ↑ See Retired Captain, Sir A. S. Hamond.
- ↑ See note at p. 18.
