# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Sanders, John Harry

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​SANDERS. (Retired Commander, 1841. f-p., 14; h-p., 34.)
John Harry Sanders was born 10 Dec. 1784.
This officer entered the Navy, 5 March, 1799, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Agincourt 64, Capt. John Bligh, bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Hon. Wm. Waldegrave at Newfoundland; and in July, 1800, became Midshipman of the Melpomène 38, Capt. Sir Chas. Hamilton, stationed on the coast of Africa. On the night of 3 Jan. 1801 he assumed command of one of five boats, carrying in the whole 97 volunteers, under the orders of Lieut. Thos. Dick, dispatched for the purpose of surprising a corvette of 18 guns and an armed schooner anchored within the bar off Senegal. After a desperate struggle of 20 minutes, in which 11 men were killed, 18 wounded, and 2 boats sunk, the British gallantly carried the corvette Le Sénégal, which they eventually destroyed under a heavy fire of grape and musketry from the batteries. The schooner, having cut her cable and sought protection under the fire of a battery and of some musketry on the southern bank of the river, frustrated every attempt made to get at her. In the course of the same year Mr. Sanders, who had been himself severely hurt, was awarded the rating of Master’s Mate. He continued in the Melpômène, the latter part of the time on the West India station, until Sept. 1802. He next, in May, 1803, joined the Amaranthe 18, Capt. Chas. Worsley Boys, attached to the force in the North Sea, where he came into repeated collision with the enemy; and from March, 1804, until the early part of 1806, he was employed in the Eagle 74, Capt. David Colby, Regulus 44, Capt. C. W. Boys, and Swiftsure 74, Capts. Mark Robinson and Wm. Geo. Rutherford. In the Regulus he was engaged in watching the Boulogne flotilla; and in the Swiftsure he fought at Trafalgar. He returned to England in the Bahama, a Spanish 74 taken during the action. Being advanced to the rank of Lieutenant by a commission bearing date 23 Sept. 1806, he was in that capacity appointed, 5 Jan. and 13 Aug. 1807, to the Hindostan 50, Capt, Thos. Bowen, and Statira 38, Capts. Sir Robt. Howe Bromley, Edwin Henry Chamberlayne, and C. W. Boys, employed in the Channel, on the North American station, and off the coast of Spain. Volunteering his services subsequently he succeeded, in the boats, in capturing a vessel laden with com, previously supposed to be armed. While absent, in June, 1809, in a fishing-boat with 2 officers and 20 men, in quest of a privateer which he had offered to cut out, he encountered two armed luggers, carrying about 40 men each, and after a valiant resistance, productive of a loss to the enemy of 8 killed and 10 wounded, was captured and taken to St. Jean de Luz. On this occasion he received three musketbaUs, one of which struck his left cheek close to the ear, and, passing out near the nose, turned the eye out of its socket. He obtained in consequence a grant of 200l. from the Patriotic Fund; and was awarded, 15 Aug. 1814, a pension of 91l. 5s. per annum. At the end of the war he was restored to liberty; and on 29 Jan. 1841 he accepted the rank he now holds.
Commander Sanders married, in Dec. 1823, Susanna, second daughter of John Jefferson, Esq., of Cheshunt.