Thomas Pakenham ( Royal Navy officer ) Sir Thomas Pakenham GCB ( 29 September 1757 – 1836 ) , styled The Honourable from birth to 1820 , was a British naval officer and politician . Pakenham , third son of Thomas Pakenham , 1st Baron Longford ( 1713 – 1766 ) , was born in 1757 . He entered the Royal Navy in 1771 on board the , with Captain John MacBride , with whom he moved to the in 1773 . In 1774 he was on the coast of Guinea with William Cornwallis in the , and in 1775 was acting lieutenant of the on the coast of North America . In the following year he was promoted by Lord Shuldham to be lieutenant of the frigate , and while in her saw much boat service , in the course of which he was severely wounded . In 1778 he joined the , commanded by Lord Mulgrave , in the fleet under Keppel , and was present in the Battle of Ushant on 27 July . In the following spring he was moved into the Europe , going to North America with the flag of Rear - Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot , and on 21 September 1779 was promoted to the command of the sloop , newly captured from the enemy . He was then sent to the Jamaica station , where , on 2 March 1780 , he was posted by Sir Peter Parker the elder to the . His old wound , received while in the " Greyhound " , broke out again , and compelled him to return to England in the autumn . In December 1780 he was appointed to the of 28 guns , attached to the fleet under George Darby , which relieved Gibraltar in April 1781 , and was sent on to Minorca in company with the under William Peere Williams - Freeman . On their way back , in passing through the straits , they fell in , on 30 May , with two Dutch frigates . In the ensuing Battle of Cape St Mary , one of the Dutch frigates , the " Castor " ( commanded by Pieter Melvill van Carnbee ) , struck to the " Flora " , while the other , the " Den Briel " , overpowered and captured the " Crescent " . The " Crescent " was immediately recaptured by the " Flora " , the " Den Briel " making her escape ; but both " Crescent " and " Castor " had received so much damage in the action that they fell into the hands of two French frigates on the way home , 19 June , the " Flora " escaping . Pakenham had , however , refused to resume the command of the " Crescent " , maintaining that by his surrender to the " Den Briel " his commission was cancelled , and that when recaptured the ship was on the same footing as any other prize . For the loss of his ship he was tried by court - martial and honourably acquitted , it being proved that he did not strike the flag till , by the fall of her masts and the disabling of her guns , further resistance was impossible . He was therefore at once appointed to the frigate , which he commanded in the following year at the relief of Gibraltar by Lord Howe . In 1793 he commissioned the , and in her took part in the Glorious First of June , when his conduct was spoken of as particularly brilliant ( JAMES , Nav . Hist . i . 176 – 7 ) , and he was recommended by Howe for the gold medal ( → James Gambier , 1st Baron Gambier ) . In 1795 he was turned over to the 84 - gun ship " Juste " , in the capture of which , on 1 June , he had had a principal hand . He was afterwards for some time master - general of the ordnance in Ireland , and had no further service in the navy . In 1783 , Pakenham entered the Irish House of Commons for Longford Borough and sat until 1790 . Subsequently he represented Kells until 1798 and again Longford Borough until the Act of Union in 1801 . On 14 February 1799 , Pakenham was promoted to be rear - admiral , vice - admiral on 23 April 1804 , and admiral on 31 July 1810 . He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 20 May 1820 , and died on 2 February 1836 . He married in 1785 Louisa , daughter of the Right Hon . John Staples , and had a large family . His fifth son Sir Richard Pakenham ( 1797 – 1868 ) is separately noticed .