# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Jones, Alexander

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​JONES. (Captain, 1811. f-p., 19; h-p., 38.)
The Honourable Alexander Jones, born 9 March, 1778, is youngest son of Charles, fourth Viscount Ranelagh, by Sarah, only daughter of Thos. Montgomery, Esq.; brother of Charles, fifth ​Viscount, who died a Captain R.N. in 1800; and uncle and heir-presumptive to the present nobleman. One of Capt. Jones’ brothers, Benjamin, was a Lieutenant-Colonel, and two others, Richard and John, were Majors, in the Army.
This officer entered the Navy, in 1790, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Echo sloop, commanded by his brother, then Hon. Chas. Jones, whom he successively followed into the Kingfisher and Andromache, on the Channel and Newfoundland stations. Being discharged, in 1794, into the Providence 16, Capt. Wm. Robt. Broughton, he sailed in that vessel on a voyage of discovery, and continued in her until wrecked among the Japan Islands 16 May, 1797; whereupon he took a passage home in the Carnatic Indiaman. On his arrival however at the Cape, he volunteered to serve with the Commander-in-Chief, Rear-Admiral Thos. Pringle, who, on the occasion of a mutiny breaking out on board his flag-ship, the Tremendous 74, made him the instrument of communication between himself and the refractory seamen, by whom the Captain and all the officers had been put on shore. As a reward for this service Mr. Jones was immediately appointed, 14 Dec. 1797, Acting-Lieutenant of the Sceptre 64, Capt. Valentine Edwards, in which ship he remained until she was lost, with 291 of her crew, in Table Bay, 5 Nov. 1799. Joining, about the period of his official promotion, which took place 15 May, 1800, the Ajax 74, Capt. Hon. Alex. Inglis Cochrane, he attended, in the course of the same year, the expeditions to Belleisle and Ferrol; and was the means, when at the latter place, of saving H.M.S. Tartarus, during a heavy gale, and after she had been abandoned by her officers and crew. In consideration of the intrepidity and judgment he had evinced on the occasion, Lieut. Jones was sent by his Captain to the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Borlase Warren, and ordered to report himself as the officer who had achieved the performance. After witnessing (in the Minerve frigate, Capt. Geo. Cockburn) the capture, 2 Sept. 1801, of the Succes and Bravoure, of 42 guns each, Lieut. Jones, until he was advanced to the rank of Commander 22 Jan. 1806, served on various stations in the Clyde 38, Capt. John Larmour, Champion 24, Capt. Robt. Howe Bromley, Thisbe 28, Capt. Shephard, Naiad 38, Capt. Jas. Wallis, and Lively 38, Capt. Graham Eden Hamond. In the latter frigate we find him present at the capture, 5 Oct. 1804, of three Spanish frigates, and the destruction of a fourth, off Cape St. Mary; and on 29 May, 1805, participating in her single-handed and self-sought skirmish with the Spanish 74-gun ship Glorioso. He was also in the Lively in several encounters vfith the enemy’s gun-boats in the Gut of Gibraltar, and was further employed in her on the Italian coast. Assuming command, 6 Oct. 1807, of the Talbot sloop, Capt. Jones, who continued in that vessel until posted, 1 Aug. 1811, assisted, during the period, at the blockade of Oporto, came also into frequent contact with the batteries on the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and Norway, and effected the capture (including the Loven of 2 guns and 11 men) of three privateers, besides a large number of other vessels. For his conduct at Oporto, where he was for some time employed on shore, he was placed by Sir Chas. Cotton, at the period of the Convention of Cintra, in temporary charge of a Portuguese frigate. His last appointment was to the command, for a short period in 1814, of the Levant 20.
Capt. Jones married, 2 Aug. 1807, Caroline, daughter of Thos. Palmer, Esq., of Hambledon, Hants, and niece of General Sir Wm. Myers, Bart., formerly Commander-in-Chief in Ireland and the West Indies, by whom he has issue three sons and two daughters. His second son, Robt. Molesworth Jones, is a Clerk in the Admiralty at Whitehall.