Arthur Forrest ( Royal Navy officer ) Arthur Forrest ( died 26 May 1770 ) was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years ' War , rising to the rank of captain and the post of commodore . Early life . Details of Forrest ' s parents and upbringing are unknown , but he had served in the merchant navy as mate or master , trading with Cartagena . He volunteered to serve as a pilot , passed his lieutenant ' s examination by December 1740 , and was given command of the sloop " Pilot " . During this time he was under orders to train officers in the pilotage of Port Royal . His skills led him to take a distinguished part in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in March 1741 . He came to the attention of Edward Boscawen after serving under him in an attack on the Baradera battery on shore on 17 and 18 March 1741 , and on 25 May he was promoted by the expedition ' s commander , Admiral Edward Vernon , to command the bomb vessel . Further appointments followed , to the sloop in November 1742 , and then to . During this time he served on the home station and in convoy service to America . In 1745 he was promoted to post captain and given command of , in which he took out a large convoy to Newfoundland . In November he was at Boston , where , by pressing some seamen contrary to colonial custom , he got into a troublesome dispute , ending in a serious fray , in which two men were killed . The boatswain of the " Wager " was arrested on a charge of murder , was convicted , and sentenced to death ; the sentence , however , does not appear to have been carried out . Forrest afterwards went to the West Indies , where , in the following year , he captured a Spanish privateer of much superior force . Seven Years ' War . In 1755 he commanded , in which he was again sent to the West Indies , and in 1757 was moved into the 60 - gun . In October he was detached , with two other ships and " Edinburgh " under his command , to cruise off Cape François ; and on 21 October encountered a powerful French squadron of four ships of the line and three heavy frigates under Guy François de Coetnempren , comte de Kersaint , which came out of harbour to drive the British away from a convoy . After a short conference with his colleagues , captains Maurice Suckling and William Langdon said to have lasted just half a minute Forrest determined on attempting to carry out his orders , and bore down on the enemy . In the ensuing battle the British managed to disable several French ships , but were outnumbered and too badly damaged to press an attack , and after two hours of fighting , each side drew off and returned to their respective ports . The French returned to the Cape , where they refitted and then proceeded on their voyage , while Forrest went back to Jamaica . On 24 December , being detached singly off Petit Guave , he encountered a fleet of eight merchant ships , and in the night captured the sloop of war which was escorting them , and used her as a tender against her own convoy , taking all the ships . In August 1759 he took the " Augusta " to England , and on paying her off , in April 1760 , commissioned , one of the ships taken by Boscawen at the Battle of Lagos in 1759 . After a few months with the fleet in the Bay of Biscay , he went out to Jamaica , where , by the death of Rear - Admiral Charles Holmes in November 1761 , he was left senior officer . On this he moved into , hoisted a broad pennant , and took on himself both the duties and privileges of commander - in - chief , until Sir James Douglas , coming from the Leeward Islands in April 1762 , summarily dispossessed him . Forrest returned to England , passenger in a merchant ship , when , on reporting himself to the admiralty , he was told that his conduct in constituting himself commodore was ‘ most irregular and unjustifiable ; ’ and that the officers whom he had promoted would not be confirmed . This led to a long correspondence , in which the admiralty so far yielded as to order him to be reimbursed for the expenses he had incurred , though without sanctioning the higher rate of pay . Later life and death . In 1769 , however , he was sent out to the same station as commander - in - chief , with his broad pennant in . His time in the appointment was short - lived , he died at Jamaica on 26 May 1770 . He had married Frederica Marina Cecilia , probably a daughter of Colonel Lynch of Jamaica , by whom he had two sons and five daughters . Mrs . Forrest survived her husband many years , and died in 1802 . His eldest daughter , Bridget , married the diarist John Byng , 5th Viscount Torrington .