# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Pearse, John

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​PEARSE. (Commander, 1825. f-p., 23; h-p., 31.)
John Pearse was born 17 May, 1780. his only brother, a Lieutenant in the service, died in the East Indies in 1809.
This officer entered the Navy, at the commencement of 1793, on board the Myrmidon, slop-ship at Plymouth, Lieut.-Commander John Burrows; and, between June, 1794, and the date of his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant 29 Dec. 1800, was employed as Midshipman in the Gibraltar 80, Capt. John Pakenham, Bombay Castle 74, Capts. Jas. Macnamara, Wm. Shield, and Thos. Sotheby, Culloden 74, Capt. Sir Thos. Troubridge, Princess Royal. 98, Capt. Thos. Macnamara Russell, and Ville de Paris 110, flag-ship of Earl St. Vincent. He officiated for some time, too, as Acting-Lieutenant of the Neptune and Téméraire 98’s. In the Gibraltar he fought in Hotham’s action 13 July, 1795; in the Bombay Castle, in which ship he was wrecked in Dec. 1796, he witnessed the capture, in Tunis Bay, of the Nemesis of 28, the Sardine of 22, and a polacre of 20 guns, as likewise the evacuation of the island of Corsica; and in the Culloden he was present in the action off Cape St. Vincent, at the bombardment of Cadiz, in the expedition against Teneriffe, and at the battle of the Nile. He served also on shore at the sieges of Naples and Capua, at the capture of Civita Vecchia and Rome, and at the bombardment, in 1799, of Alexandria. With the colours taken at Capua Mr. Pearse was sent by Lord Nelson to the Queen of Naples, by whom he was presented, in return, with a diamond ring. His appointments, subsequently to his promotion, were – in Jan. 1801, to the Spitfire 18, Capt. Robt. Keen, employed on the Channel and Irish stations, where he saw much boat-service – 18 Sept. 1804, after three months of half-pay, to the Argo 44, Capt. Geo. Parker – in Oct. following, as Senior, to the Cruizer 18, Capts. John Hancock, Pringle Stoddart, and Geo. Chas. Mackenzie, with whom he served in the Downs, North Sea, and Baltic until Jan. 1809 – and 17 Nov. in the latter year, and 24 April, 1810, to the command of the Safeguard gun-brig and Decoy cutter. During the period of his attachment to the Cruizer we find him concerned in the capture of five privateers, 12 smuggling cutters and luggers, and many other vessels; besides participating in a warm action with the Crown batteries and Danish gunboats during the siege of Copenhagen in 1807. In command of the boats he succeeded in making prize of a variety of merchantmen, one of which, a galliot, laden with brandy and wine, he carried off from the beach near Blaukenburg after considerable difficulty, although 2 field-pieces were brought to the water’s edge to protect her. He also, with much judgment and resolution, possessed himself, at the same place, of a 14-gun privateer, notwithstanding that the crew, 50 in number, attempted to defend her, and that a body of the enemy had assembled on the sandhills for a similar purpose. While absent in Jan. 1806 in a captured smuggling cutter with only 8 men, very indifferently equipped, he fell in with three large smuggling luggers, and, although one was armed, contrived by stratagem to seize upon two of them, carrying 24 men, together with 1700 casks of spirits and 300 bales of dry goods. In a small tender fitted out by the Cruizer in 1808, Mr. Pearse attacked a Danish convoy, and, in face of a schooner of five times his own force, captured one galliot laden with wheat, drove two others on shore, and dispersed the rest. He afterwards captured a schuyt laden with wheat, another laden with iron and deals, and two small packetboats, and destroyed 14 other vessels. During his command of the Decoy, stationed for four years in the Downs, he boarded and carried one privateer, chased on shore and destroyed another near Gravelines, induced a third, from a fear of being boarded, to cut her cable and run on the rocks in Boulogne Bay, destroyed a large gun-boat after chasing her on shore near Nieuport, captured 10 smuggling vessels of various descriptions laden with 4000 gallons of spirits and a considerable quantity of light goods, sunk a lugger with 20,000 guineas on board by running her over, and burnt a sloop in ballast taken at the entrance of Gravelines harbour. From May, 1817, to May, 1820, Mr. Pearse commanded the Wickham revenue-cutter on the Irish station. He attained his present rank 27 May, 1825, and has since been on half-pay. We may add that in the course of his career afloat he was twice wounded.
Commander Pearse has laboured for upwards of a quarter of a century in scientifically examining various nautical questions, and has published much useful and interesting matter on the mechanical properties of an anchor, on the formation of cutters’ jibs and the setting and standing of sails in general, and on the stowage and sailing of ships, &c. His remarks on the jib-sails of cutters called forth in 1829 the thanks of the Society of Arts, and were ordered for publication in the 47th volume of its ‘Transactions.’ He has also very elaborately investigated the theory of naval architecture – that part of it in particular that bears reference to the way in which the motions and evolutions of ships are performed; and has demonstrated by numerous experiments that a ship performs its motions about an axis passing through the metacentre or point of stability, and that the theory which determines the centre of gravity of a ship to be the centre of motion, and which has existed ever since naval architecture was first considered as a science, is erroneous. Much has been published by Commander Pearse on the subject, but we refer our readers especially to a small pamphlet published by him in 1836 at Plymouth under the title of ‘Reflections on the present State of the Theory of Naval Architecture, exhibiting at the same time some of the Errors which, from time immemorial, have existed;’ and also to papers from his pen inserted in the numbers of the United Service Journal for March, May, and October, 1842, and March, 1843. Commander Pearse was one of the first to invent and propose a plan for naval gun-sights.