Charles Brisbane Sir Charles Brisbane KCB ( c . 1769 – December 1829 ) was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence , and with distinction under Lords Hood and Nelson . He took part in the capture in 1796 of three Dutch East Indiamen in Saldanha Bay , the capture of the Spanish frigate " Pomona " off Havana , Cuba in 1806 and then in 1807 the island of Curaçao was captured under his command . He was made governor of St . Vincent in 1808 , and served as such until his death in 1829 . Family and early life . Charles Brisbane was born circa 1769 , the fourth but eldest surviving son of Admiral John Brisbane . He was entered on board , commanded by his father , in 1779 . He was present at the action of 8 January 1780 , and the relief of the Great Siege of Gibraltar in January 1780 , and later served in the West Indies . At the end of 1781 he was placed on board with Captain Henry Savage , and was present at the Battle of the Saintes off Dominica , on 12 April 1782 , where he was badly wounded by a splinter . He continued serving during the peace , and after the Spanish armament in 1790 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 22 November . In 1793 he was aboard the frigate , in which he went out to the Mediterranean , and was employed on shore at Toulon during the occupation of the city , and afterwards in Corsica , both at the siege of Saint - Florent and at the siege of Bastia . Brisbane was under the immediate orders of Captain Horatio Nelson , and like him sustained the loss of an eye from a severe wound in the head inflicted by the small fragments of an iron shot . He then served for a short time in , bearing the flag of Admiral Lord Hood , by whom he was promoted to the command of the sloop on 1 July 1794 , and served in her during the remainder of that and the following year in the squadron acting in the Gulf of Genoa , under the immediate orders of Nelson . Command . In the autumn of 1795 he was sent from Gibraltar to convoy two troopship s to Barbados . On his way there he fell in with a Dutch squadron , which he kept company with , sending the transports on by themselves ; finding that the Dutch were bound for the Cape of Good Hope , he carried the intelligence to Sir George Elphinstone , the commander - in - chief on that station , acting contrary to the orders under which he had sailed . After the capture of the Dutch ships in Saldanha Bay on 18 August 1796 , he was promoted by Sir George to the command of one of them ; he had previously , 22 July , been promoted by Sir John Jervis , the commander - in - chief in the Mediterranean , under whose orders he had sailed , and he also received the thanks of the admiralty . He continued on the Cape station in command of the frigate , and was in her at Saint Helena when a mutiny broke out on board . This he quelled decisively , and he was shortly afterwards recalled to the Cape to take command of , Rear - Admiral Thomas Pringle ' s flagship , on board which also there had been mutineers . In the course of 1798 he returned to England with Pringle in command of the frigate , and in 1801 was appointed to the frigate , one of the squadron off Brest , under Admiral William Cornwallis . Napoleonic Wars . During the short Peace of Amiens he commanded the frigate and the in the West Indies . He was then moved into , on which he took part in the Action of 28 June 1803 , and in which on his way home he was nearly lost in a hurricane . In 1805 Brisbane was appointed to the frigate , which he took to the West Indies . Early in 1806 he ran " Arethusa " ashore amongst the Colorados rocks , near the north - west end of Cuba , and she was got off only by throwing all her guns overboard . In this defenceless condition she encountered a Spanish ship of the line off Havana , but the enemy vessel ran in under the guns of Morro Castle . Having refitted at Jamaica , the " Arethusa " was in August again off Havana , and on the 23rd , in company with the 44 - gun , captured the Spanish frigate " Pomona " , anchored near a battery , and supported by ten gunboats . The gunboats were all destroyed and the battery blown up , apparently by some accident to the furnaces for heating shot , by which the " Arethusa " had been set on fire ; she had two men killed , and thirty - two , including Captain Brisbane , wounded . On 1 January 1807 Brisbane , still in " Arethusa " , with three other frigates , having been sent off Curaçao , reduced the forts and captured the island from the Dutch . For his success on this occasion Brisbane was knighted , and he , as well as the other three captains , received a gold medal . He continued in command of the " Arethusa " till near the end of 1808 , when he was transferred to the 74 - gun , but was almost immediately afterwards appointed governor of the island of Saint Vincent . He held the post , without any further service at sea , until his death on the island in December 1829 . On 2 January 1815 he had been nominated a KCB , and attained his flag rank on 12 August 1819 . Family . He married Sarah , daughter of Sir James Patey , of Reading , and left several children .