# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Deacon, Henry Colins

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​DEACON. (Captain, 1817. f-p., 13; h-p., 34.)
Henry Colins Deacon entered the Navy, 3 Nov. 1800, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Fisgard 38, Capt. Thos. Byam Martin, stationed in the Channel; removed, in May, 1802, to the Achille 74, Capt. John Okes Hardy; and, from the following July until Nov. 1806, served with Capt. Wm. Parker, part of the time as Midshipman, in the Alarm 32, and Amazon 38. In July, 1803, and Sept. 1805, the latter vessel captured the privateers Le Félix of 16, and Principe de la Paz of 24 guns; she also, in the summer of 1805, accompanied Lord Nelson to the West Indies in pursuit of the combined fleets of France and Spain; and on 13 March, 1806, when in company with the London 98, had 3 men killed and 6 wounded, at the capture, after a long running fight, of the 80-guu ship Marengo, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Linois, and 40-gun frigate Belle Poule. Mr. Deacon, in the Africa 64, Capt. Henry Wm. Bayntun,- subsequently conoperated, as Master’s Mate, in Lieut.-General Whitelocke’s unfortunate attempt to recover Buenos Ayres in July, 1807; after which, on his transference, as Acting-Lieutenant, to the Olympia cutter, Lieut.-Commander Henry Taylor, he assisted at the hard-wrought capture of a French letter-of-marque of much superior force; and then sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. Being officially promoted on 24 Feb. 1808, he next joined the Caledon, Capt. Jas. Tomkinson; and on 27 April, 1809, was appointed to the Nereide 36, Capts. Robt. Corbet and Nesbit Josiah Willoughby; under the former of whom he took, in Aug. following, two batteries, commanding the anchorage of Ste. Rose, on the eastern side of the island of Bourbon, and contributed to the ensuing reduction of the town of St. Paul’s. Under the gallant Willoughby, Mr. Deacon was slightly wounded in a dashing attack made on the enemy’s batteries and troops at Jacotel, in the Mauritius, 1 May, 1810. He also aided, in July following, at the capture of Ile Bourbon; and on 17 Aug. he landed at the storming of a fort on Pointe du Diable, Isle of France – immediately subsequent to which achievement we find him assuming the command of three boats, and covering Capt. Willoughby and his party in their march alongshore to Grand Port. Mr. Deacon was next on board the Nereide when she compelled the enemy’s sloop Victor to surrender, and exchanged broadsides .with the 40-gun frigate Minerve; and he was again most severely wounded in the throat, breast, legs, and arms, during a series of unhappy though heroic operations, which, by the 28th of the month last mentioned, terminated in the self-destruction, in Port Sud-Est, of the British frigates Magicienne and Sirius, and the capture, by a French squadron, of the Nereide and Iphigenia, – the former, after being reduced to a mere wreck, and incurring a loss in killed and wounded of nearly her whole crew. Mr. Deacon, whose sufferings for a long time endangered his life, regained his liberty on the reduction of the Mauritius in Dec. following. He was subsequently appointed, 28 May, 1811, and 10 March, 1812, to the Fame 74, and Lavinia 44, Capts. Walter Bathurst and Geo. Digby, on the Mediterranean station; and on 7 June, 1814, was promoted to the command of the Niobe 38, armée en flûte. While in that vessel, which he paid off 14 March, 1816, Capt. Deacon conveyed the sick of the Russian Imperial Guards to Cronstadt, in acknowledgment for which service the Emperor, among other marks of favour, presented him with a ring: and he was also with Sir Philip Durham at the capture of Guadeloupe in 1815. His promotion to Post-rank took place 2 April, 1817; and his acceptance of the Retirement 1 Oct. 1846.