Sir Andrew Snape Douglas (8 October 1761 – 4 June 1797) was a distinguished Scottish sea captain in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

during the American War of Independence and

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia ...

Family and early life

Andrew Snape Douglas was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

on 8 October 1761, the son of Dr. William Douglas, a medical doctor from Springfield in Fife, and Lydia Hamond, daughter of a

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

merchant and shipowner. William Douglas's death in 1770 led Andrew to sign on that year aboard his maternal uncle, Sir Andrew Snape Hamond's ship, the 32-gun frigate . The two sailed to North America, and after spending time along the coast, Douglas moved to the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

. With the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1775 he returned to North America and rejoined his uncle, now commanding the 44-gun . He received his commission as a lieutenant on 23 April 1778, and was made master and commander on 16 February 1780. He was to have been appointed to the armed ship ''Germain'', but instead took command of a floating battery, and was present at the

Siege of Charleston The siege of Charleston was a major engagement and major British victory in the American Revolutionary War, fought in the environs of Charles Town (today Charleston), the capital of South Carolina, between March 29 and May 12, 1780. The Britis ...

. He was subsequently promoted to

post-captain Post-captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from: * Officers in command of a naval vessel, who were (and still are) addressed as captain ...

on 15 May 1780 and appointed to the command of the captured American frigate . Instead he had in April 1780 become commander of the ''Roebuck'', then serving as the flagship of Vice-Admiral

Mariot Arbuthnot Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot (1711 – 31 January 1794) was a British admiral, who commanded the Royal Navy's North American station during the American War for Independence. Early life A native of Weymouth, Dorset in England, Arbuthnot was the so ...

. He went on to capture the American ships on 14 April 1781 and ''Protector'' on 5 May. He was succeeded in the command of the ''Roebuck'' by Captain John Orde in July 1781.

Command

The ''Roebuck'' was ordered home in July 1781, but Douglas remained in American waters, having been given command of the 54-gun . He was employed in a senior position in Admiral Thomas Graves's fleet owing to his extensive knowledge of the American coasts. He was subsequently given command of a squadron of frigates and went on to enjoy considerable success in a number of cruises. Among his captures was the 32-gun French frigate ''Magicienne'' on 2 July 1781, an action that thwarted a planned French assault on British ships in the St John River. He then proceeded to end the

Raid on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia (1782) The Raid on Lunenburg (also known as the Sack of Lunenburg) occurred during the American Revolution when the US privateer, Captain Noah Stoddard of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and four other privateer vessels attacked the British settlement at ...

. Douglas returned to England after the end of the war, initially spending time at

Chatham Dockyard Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century ...

studying naval architecture, before going to sea again, mostly serving in the Mediterranean and the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

. Douglas commanded the 74-gun

third rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third ...

from October 1787 during the period of the Spanish Armament. He was in command of the 32-gun , which had been appointed the

guard ship A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat, which serves its protective role at sea. Royal Navy In the Royal Navy of the eighteenth century, peacetime guard ships were usual ...

at Weymouth, when the town was visited by

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

. Douglas conducted the King on his first voyage aboard a warship, and on 13 September 1789 King George appointed Douglas a

knight bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...

. Also in 1789 Douglas and his uncle Snape Hamond were members of the court for the court martial of the mutineers of the ''Bounty''. Douglas was then in command of the 74-gun from 1790.

French Revolutionary Wars

The outbreak of the

in February 1793 led to Douglas being appointed to command the 38-gun frigate . He went on to capture five enemy vessels that year, and was involved in the capture of a French

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

and her prize, the Spanish

galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch W ...

''St Jago''. Lord Howe arranged for Douglas to be commodore in charge of the fleet's frigates, occasionally sending him on detached cruises. He moved aboard Howe's flagship, the 100-gun

first rate In the rating system of the British Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a first rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Originating in the Jacobean era with the designation of Ships Royal capable of carrying at ...

on 8 April 1794, apparently through the auspices of both his uncle and the

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham General John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, also 2nd Viscount Pitt and 2nd Baron Chatham, (9 October 1756 – 24 September 1835) was a British soldier and politician. He spent a lengthy period in the cabinet but is best known for commanding the dis ...

. Now serving as Howe's

flag captain In the Royal Navy, a flag captain was the captain of an admiral's flagship. During the 18th and 19th centuries, this ship might also have a "captain of the fleet", who would be ranked between the admiral and the "flag captain" as the ship's "First ...

Douglas fought at the

Glorious First of June The Glorious First of June (1 June 1794), also known as the Fourth Battle of Ushant, (known in France as the or ) was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic ...

, sustaining a severe wound to the head but refusing to leave the deck. He was appointed a Colonel of Marines on 1 June 1795 and remained as captain of the ''Queen Charlotte'' after Howe was succeeded by Lord Bridport. He commanded his ship at the

Battle of Groix The Battle of Groix was a large naval engagement which took place near the island of Groix off the Biscay coast of Brittany on 23 June 1795 ( 5 messidor an III) during the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought between elements of the ...

in 1795, earning private praise for his courage in leading his ship whilst heavily outnumbered, but little public reward.

Personal life and later years

Lord Howe on the deck of HMS Queen Charlotte 1 June 1794

Douglas had married Anne Burgess on 14 November 1781 in British-occupied

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. They had one son and two daughters, Anne Hammond Douglas and Harriet Douglas. He had begun to suffer increasing ill health, complaining of persistent headaches, which eventually forced him to end his career at sea. He moved ashore but died on 4 June 1797. A subsequent autopsy revealed brain tumours, a likely result of his injury at the Glorious First of June some years before.''The Pictorial History of England'', George Lillie Craik, p. 394

Legacy

An engraving of Douglas is in the collection of the British National Portrait Gallery. There are several other images of Douglas; he appears in several paintings by

Mather Brown Mather Brown (baptized October 11, 1761 – May 25, 1831) was an American painter who was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was active in England. Early life Brown was the son of Gawen and Elizabeth (Byles) Brown, and descended from the Rev. ...

and in a portrait by modern maritime artist Irwin Bevan. Douglas is primarily known today through his letters to his uncle.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas, Andrew Snape Royal Navy officers Knights Bachelor Royal Navy personnel of the American Revolutionary War Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Military personnel from Edinburgh 1761 births 1797 deaths