page_title: Lawrence Halsted
section_title: Lieutenancy
hierarchical_section_title: Lawrence Halsted / Lieutenancy
context_page_description: Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
  Halsted was the son of a naval officer and served with his father during the first years of the war in America. After his father's death he served under Captain Richard Onslow and was present at the engagements with the Comte d'Estaing and the Comte de Grasse in the West Indies and off the coast of North America. He survived various battles and a hurricane in the Atlantic in 1782, and by the end of the wars had risen to lieutenant.
  He received his first independent commands while serving in the East Indies in the inter-war years, and after spending time as a flag captain during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars, moved on to command a number of frigates. Halsted went on to achieve particular success aboard HMS Phoenix, and was rewarded with command of a squadron. Ships under his overall command captured two Dutch ships and destroyed several others in the North Sea in 1796, and after a successful period against privateers off Ireland, he moved to the Mediterranean.
context_section_description: Princess  Caroline went out to the West Indies as a convoy escort, after which Halsted moved aboard the 74-gun HMS Canada under Captain the Honourable William Cornwallis. With Cornwallis, Halsted saw action at the Battle of the Saintes on 9–12 April 1782, during which battle Canada was heavily engaged with the French Ville de Paris, flagship of the Comte de Grasse. Ville de Paris was captured by the British and Canada was one of the ships assigned to escort a convoy of captured French ships and damaged British ships back to Britain. The ships were caught in a hurricane during the voyage across the Atlantic, and the Ville de Paris and HMS Centaur foundered, while HMS Ramillies had to be abandoned and burnt. Canada survived the storm and made it back to England to be paid off in January 1783.
  Halsted's next appointment was to the 74-gun HMS Ganges, still serving under Captain Cornwallis. He remained aboard Ganges for the next five years, with Ganges initially employed as a guardship, before moving to Gibraltar and finally paying off in December 1787. Halsted now entered a brief period of unemployment, which lasted until 18 November 1788 when he joined Cornwallis's new ship, the 64-gun HMS Crown, as his first-lieutenant and went with him to the East Indies. Cornwallis was commodore in the East Indies, and after continued good service under his command, Halsted was promoted to commander on 20 October 1790 and given command of the sloop HMS Atalanta.
caption: The Battle of the Saintes, depicted by Thomas Whitcombe
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