2397316Royal Naval Biography — Nurse, HughJohn Marshall


HUGH NURSE, Esq.
[Commander.]

Entered the royal navy in 1809, as midshipman on board the Blake 74, Captain (now Sir Edward) Codrington, under whom he served, principally on the Mediterranean station, for a period of four years[1]. In 1813, we find him proceeding to North America, where he participated in much active service under the late Commodore Joseph Nourse, then commanding the Severn frigate[2]. The last ship in which he served as a petty officer was the Tyne 26, Captain William M‘Kenzie Godfrey, on the Jamaica station.

On the 30th Sept. 1822, the Tyne’s tender, a small hired sloop named the Eliza, mounting one 12-pounder carronade, and having on board a midshipman (White), and twenty-four men, under the command of Mr. Nurse, was attacked at her anchorage in La Guahava by a piratical schooner, mounting six carriage guns, with a complement of forty men, and a felucca, the Firme Union, of five guns and thirty-five men:– the result will be seen by the following, hitherto unpublished, statement:–

“At 8-30, p.m., the schooner brought up at a short distance, and without hailing, fired two shot at the Eliza. Mr. Nurse immediately opened a fire from his only gun, loaded with round and grape, supported by musketry; and after six rounds, the slaughter on the pirate’s deck must have been great, as the cries of the wounded were hideous. A felucca now bore down between the schooner and the Eliza, with the evident intention of running alongside the latter, but which she frustrated by getting under her bow, and instantly boarding. The defence of the freebooters was desperate: the captain and nine men were killed, and the remaining part of her crew, with the exception of four men, two of whom were severely wounded, jumped overboard. She appeared to have been fully prepared for action. Shot were heating, and the men armed with cutlasses, each having a long knife in his left hand. On our side two seamen were killed, and Mr. Nurse and six men severely wounded. Perhaps in few actions of the kind has a greater degree of cool and determined gallantry been displayed.”

On this occasion, Mr. Nurse was shot through the right arm, and received a sabre cut in the left. The former wound has been reported by Drs. Weir and Burnett equal to the loss of a limb, the shoulder joint having no power of motion: his name, however, does not appear in the pension list. On the 5th Dec. 1822, Mr. Nurse was promoted, by Sir Charles Rowley, “for services independent of the above,” into the Pyramus frigate. Captain Francis Newcombe, C.B. He obtained the rank of commander Jan. 26th, 1828; and married, Nov. 15th following, Amelia, only child of the late Colonel William Bulkeley.



  1. See Vol. I. Part II. pp. 636 and 872, et seq.
  2. See Vol. II. Part II. p. 880.