Edward Sneyd Clay

[1] He was initially a midshipman aboard the 74-gun HMS Hector, under Captain Sir John Hamilton, but later moved to a number of different ships after the end of the war.

[1] By September 1793, after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, Clay was serving aboard the 74-gun HMS Alcide, under Captain Robert Linzee.

Linzee later was posted as a commodore, and Alcide supported the operations to capture Corsica, working alongside Corsican General Pasquale Paoli.

[1] In his despatch Duncan advised the Lords of the Admiralty to apply for any further details they required to Lieutenant Clay, describing him as 'an intelligent and deserving officer'.

[3] The deliverer of important despatches was usually marked out for special favour by the Admiralty, and Clay's reward was a promotion to be master and commander of the bomb vessel HMS Zebra on 3 December 1799.

[1][3] He spent 1800 serving in the North Sea, and the following year was assigned to the fleet dispatched to Copenhagen under Vice-Admiral Archibald Dickson to support a diplomatic mission led by Lord Whitworth.

[5] The Danes remained disgruntled, and by early 1801 had concluded a treaty with Russia and Sweden to form the League of Armed Neutrality.

[6] Clay then moved to take command of the 98-gun HMS Temeraire on 6 February 1809, with orders to return to the Baltic as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Manley Dixon.

[1][7] War had broken out with the Danes after the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, and a British fleet was stationed in the Baltic under Sir James Saumarez.

Clay immediately dispatched boats to her assistance, which helped to fight off the Danish gunboats, and then towed the damaged frigate to safety.

[9] Temeraire's later Baltic service involved being dispatched to observe the Russian fleet at Revel, during which time she made a survey of the island of Nargen.

[14] Clay's final command was a posting to the 64-gun HMS Raisonnable on 16 July 1812, which by this time was a receiving ship at Sheerness Dockyard.

On a stormy sea beneath towering clouds, a number of sailing warships battle. In the foreground are three ships, two to the right of the frame bridged by clouds of smoke and the mainmast of the far right ship, which bears a prominent horizontally striped flag is toppling. To the left of the frame a third ship drifts as flames leap from its deck
The Battle of Camperdown, 11 October 1797 , Thomas Whitcombe , 1798, National Maritime Museum . The painting shows the British flagship Venerable engaged with the Dutch flagship Vrijheid .
The Battle of Copenhagen , as painted by Nicholas Pocock . The British line is diagonally across the foreground, the city of Copenhagen in the background and the Danish line between. The ships in the left foreground are British bomb vessels . Clay's bomb vessel Zebra would be among them.