# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cosby, Phillips

​COSBY, PHILLIPS (1727?–1808), admiral, was born in Nova Scotia, of which province his father, Colonel Alexander Cosby, was lieutenant-governor, and his godfather, General Phillips, the husband of his father's sister, was governor. He entered the navy in 1745, on board the Comet bomb, under the command of Captain (afterwards Sir Richard) Spry, with whom he continued in different ships—the Chester in the East Indies and at the siege of Pondicherry, the Gibraltar in North American waters with Commodore Keppel, the Fougueux in the fleet under Boscawen in 1755, the Orford at Louisbourg in 1758 and Quebec in 1759—until his promotion to the rank of commander on 2 June 1760. As lieutenant of the Orford he is said to have been specially attached as naval aide-de-camp to General Wolfe, and to have been with him at his death on the heights of Abraham. In the early months of 1761 he commanded the Laurel and Beaver sloops, and on 19 May was posted to the Hind frigate, and continued in her on the home station till October 1762, when he was transferred to the Isis, in which he continued till the peace. In 1766 he was appointed to the Montreal frigate, and commanded her in the Mediterranean under his old captain, Commodore Spry, until 1770, with the interlude of bringing to England the body of the Duke of York in October 1767. On paying off the Montreal he was appointed, in 1771, receiver-general of St. Kitts, a lucrative post which he resigned on the outbreak of the war with France in 1778. He was then appointed to command the Centaur, and was shortly afterwards moved into the Robust, in which he accompanied Vice-admiral Arbuthnot to North America in 1779, and continuing on that station had the honour of leading the line, and, owing to the admiral's ignorance and incapacity, of sustaining the whole brunt of the enemy's fire in the action off the Chesapeake on 16 March 1781. The Robust was so shattered that it was not without great difficulty and danger that she reached New York, nor could she be refitted in time to sail with Rear-admiral Graves in September. When Graves returned to the Chesapeake in October, the Robust, though scarcely seaworthy, accompanied him, and being shortly afterwards ordered to England had to bear up for Antigua, where she was hove down. She finally reached England in July 1782.
In 1786 Cosby was appointed commodore and commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. He held this post for three years, and shortly after his return was advanced to flag rank, 21 Sept. 1790. In 1792 he was port-admiral at Plymouth, and in 1793, with his flag in the Windsor Castle, went out to the Mediterranean as third in command in the fleet under Lord Hood. His service in command of a detached squadron was uneventful, and towards the end of 1794, having hoisted his flag in the Alcide, he returned to England with a large convoy. He had no further service afloat, though till the peace in 1801 he had command of the impress service in Ireland. He became vice-admiral on 12 April ​1794, admiral on 14 Feb. 1799, and at the age of eighty died suddenly at Bath on 10 Jan. 1808. ‘He was at the rooms the preceding evening and played at whist.’ He married in 1792 Eliza, daughter of Mr. W. Gunthorpe of Southampton, but left no children, and the estates of Stradbally (in Queen's County) passed by his will to his next of kin, Thomas Cosby, who traced back to a common ancestor, their respective great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Phillips Cosby himself was the second son of the ninth son of his grandfather, who had eleven sons and four daughters; and had, contrary to all probabilities, succeeded to the estate in 1774, on the failure of all the elder branches of the family.
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Charnock's Biog. Nav. vi. 435; Naval Chronicle (with a portrait), xiv. 353; Gent. Mag. (1808), vol. lxxviii. pt. i. p. 92; official letters in the Public Record Office.]
J. K. L.