# Royal Naval Biography/Dacres, Richard

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RICHARD DACRES, Esq [Superannuated Rear-Admiral.]
This officer, whose ancestors appear to have settled at Leatherhead, in Surrey, about the close of the sixteenth century, is the fifth son of the late Richard Dacres, Esq. Secretary to the garrison of Gibraltar, by Mary, daughter of William Bateman, Esq. of Bury St. Edmund’s, in the county of Suffolk, and a brother of the late Vice-Admiral Dacres.
He was born in Sept. 1761, entered the naval service in 1775, and served as a Midshipman on board the Renown of 50 guns, at the evacuation of Boston, and the reduction of New York, Rhode Island, and on various other services. Mr. Dacres remained in the Renown until 1778, when he returned to England and joined the Apollo frigate, commanded by Captain Philemon Pownall. He was consequently in the action between that ship and l’Oiseau French frigate, Jan. 31, 1779; which terminated in the capture of the enemy. On this occasion the Apollo had 6 men killed and 22, including her Commander and his two Lieutenants, wounded. The enemy’s loss was never ascertained.
Our officer was afterwards removed into the Victory, a first rate, bearing the flag of Sir Charles Hardy, Commander-in-Chief of the Channel fleet; by whom he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, and appointed to the Amazon frigate, commanded by the Hon. W. C. Finch, with whom he proceeded to the West Indies in the spring of 1780.
During the memorable hurricane which visited the West India islands on the 10th and 11th Oct. in that year, the Amazon had a narrow escape from destruction. The particulars of her situation are thus related in Captain Finch’s official letter on that subject:–
“The morning of the commencement of the gale, the Amazon stood under her storm stay-sails; it was but for a short time the canvas held; after that the ship behaved perfectly well. About seven at night the gale increased to a degree that can be better conceived from the consequences, than any description I can give. There was an evident necessity of doing something to relieve the ship; but I was unwilling to cut away the lower masts till the last extremity, and accordingly ordered the people to cut away the main-top-mast; my orders were attempted to be put into execution with the utmost alacrity; but before it could be accomplished, I ​found it necessary to call them down to cut away the main-mast. Whilst I was waiting for the men to come down, a sudden gust overset the ship; most of the officers, with myself, and a number of the ship’s company, got upon the side of the ship; the wheel on the quarter-deck was then under water. In this situation I could perceive the ship settling bodily some feet, until the water washed up to the after part of the slides of the carronades on the weather side. Notwithstanding the ship was so far gone, upon the masts, bowsprit, &c. going away, she righted as far as to bring the lee gunwale even with the water’s edge. By the exertion of all the officers and men, we soon got the lee quarter-deck guns and carronades overboard, and soon after one of the forecastle guns and sheet anchor cut away; which had ao good an effect, that we were enabled to get at the pumps and lee guns on the main-deck; the throwing them overboard was, in our situation, a work of great difficulty; and I could perceive the ship was already going down by the stern. This arduous task was accomplished under the direction of Lieutenant Edward Pakenham, whose great experience and determined perseverance, marked him out as perhaps the only individual to whom (amidst such great exertions) a pre-eminence could be given. The water was above the cable on the orlop-deck, with a vast quantity between decks; and the stump of the main-mast falling out of the step, occasioned one of the chain pumps to be rendered useless, as was the other soon after; by the great activity of the two carpenter’s mates, they were alternately cleared. Besides the loss of our masts, the ship has suffered considerable damages, the books and papers totally destroyed, and 20 seamen drowned and wounded.”
From the Amazon, Mr. Dacres was removed, as first Lieutenant, into the Alcide of 74 guns, Captain C. Thompson; in which ship he was present in Admiral Graves’ action off the Chesapeake, Sept. 5th, 1781; and in the different skirmishes with Count de Grasse’s squadron, at St. Christopher’s, in the beginning of the year 1782. He also participated in Rodney’s glorious victory over the French fleet, on the 12th April succeeding.
The present just rule, of promoting first Lieutenants on such occasions, was not then established; and Mr. Dacres remained in the Alcide till 1783, when he was appointed junior Lieutenant of the Bombay Castle 74, stationed at Portsmouth, where he continued about two years, and then accompanied Commodore Sawyer to Halifax, in the Leander 50, from which ship he was paid off in 1788.
In the Spanish armament of 1790, Lieutenant Dacres was appointed, first, to the Dictator 64, and afterwards to the ​Windsor Castle of 98 guns, bearing the flag of Rear Admiral Sawyer.
The difference with Spain, it will be recollected, was amicably settled; and from that period till the commencement of hostilities against the French republic, Mr. Dacres remained unemployed. He was then appointed to command the Union armed brig; from which vessel he removed as first Lieutenant into the Hannibal of 74 guns, commanded by the late Sir John Colpoys.
In 1794, the Hannibal being put out of commission, he was appointed first Lieutenant of the Diamond frigate, commanded by his old messmate and steady friend Sir W. Sidney Smith. With that officer he appears to have remained but a short time; as in the month of October following, we find him serving with his former Commander, Rear-Admiral Colpoys, in the London of 98 guns.
At length, in the month of March, 1795, after serving fifteen years as a Lieutenant, Mr. Dacres was promoted to the rank of Commander, in the Childers sloop; and on the 31st Oct. following, he was further advanced by being made a Post-Captain, in the Camilla of 20 guns, on the North Sea station. During the time he commanded the former vessel, he captured the Vigilante, a national cutter, mounting 6 guns. In the spring of 1797, Captain Dacres was removed into the Astrea frigate, and soon after performed a most essential service by effecting his escape from the Nore during the height of the general mutiny, and convoying a valuable fleet in safety to the Baltic. Whilst in that ship he also captured several French and Dutch privateers. The Astrea being paid off in 1799, our officer remained without any other appointment until early in 1801, when he obtained the command of the Juste of 80 guns, and accompanied Sir Robert Calder to the West Indies, in pursuit of a French squadron that had escaped from Brest.
On his return to England, our officer was appointed to the De Ruyter of 68 guns, stationed as a guardship at Spithead; in which he remained till the cessation of hostilities. He then joined the Desirée, and went to Jamaica with the squadron under the late Sir George Campbell, but quitted her there in consequence of ill health.
​On the renewal of the war in 1803, Captain Dacres was appointed to the Sea Fencible service at Dartmouth; and in 1805, when his friend Sir W. Sidney Smith hoisted his flag in the Pompée, he proceeded with him, as his Captain, to the Mediterranean, where he was engaged in a great variety of services, particularly on the coast of Calabria, and at the forcing of the passage of the Dardanelles, and destruction of a Turkish squadron off Point Pesquies.
The Pompée, as already mentioned in our memoir of Sir W. Sidney Smith, returned to England from Alexandria in June 1807, and soon after received the flag of Vice-Admiral Stanhope, whom Captain Dacres accompanied to Copenhagen, where he displayed very great activity, zeal, and presence of mind, in his exertions to subdue an alarming fire which unfortunately broke out in the dock-yard, on the night of Sept. 22, for which he received a very deserved tribute of praise from Sir Samuel Hood, under whose orders he was at that time superintending the equipment of the Danish fleet, and was presented by Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, the naval and military Commanders-in-Chief, with a handsome piece of plate, as a token of their approbation.
On the 2d Feb. 1808, Captain Dacres was appointed Governor of the Royal Naval Asylum, where he continued until August 1816, highly respected by every individual connected with, or participating in the benefits of that admirable institution. He was superannuated with the rank of Rear Admiral, March 29, 1817.
Our officer married, in 1788, Miss Martha Phillips Milligan, by whom he has several children, one of whom is the lady of Captain W. F. Carrol, R.N. C.B. and another has recently been united to Captain H. S. Olivier, of the 32d regiment.
Residence.– Bathford, co. Somerset.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 39*.
* ↑ See Retired Captain Sir Andrew S. Hamond.
* ↑ See Vol. I, p. 105.
* ↑ See Vol. I. p. 133.
* ↑ See retired Captain J. N. Inglefield.
* ↑ See Vol. I., note at p. 35, et seq.
* ↑ See Vol. I. pp. 315, et seq. 799, et seq. and 809.
* ↑ The Royal Naval Asylum was firsc instituted by two philanthropic chiefs of the Hebrew nation, (Messrs. Benjamin and Abraham Goldsmid) aided by the public and professional skill of the gallant Sir W. Sidney Smith. The object of the institution is the education of children, whose fathers are, or have been, engaged in the naval service of their country. The number of pupils was originally intended to be 1000; but at present it is, we believe, restricted to a smaller number.