Sir Henry Heathcote (20 January 1777 – 16 August 1851) was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

While there he took a bold decision to open despatches and then quit his post to deliver them to the station commanders, who were at the time involved in the Java Expedition.

[1] The first was the Battle of Genoa on 14 March 1795, in which Princess Royal flew the flag of Vice-Admiral Samuel Goodall and sustained casualties of four killed and eight wounded.

[9] Heathcote remained in the West Indies until April 1805, when he took command of the 36-gun HMS Desiree and sailed her back to Britain escorting a convoy of 101 ships, afterwards paying her off.

[1][11] He made two voyages to India, carrying Gore Ouseley and Mirza Abolhassan Khan Ilchi, the ambassadors between Persia and Britain.

[12] Aware that with Broughton absent, any important orders that the despatches contained might go unread for some time, Heathcote took the unusual step of opening them.

Despite Heathcote's motives, Broughton was dissatisfied with his conduct, and requested a court-martial from the commander of the British naval forces, Rear-Admiral Robert Stopford.

The third charge, that of neglecting his duty by failing to escort a merchant fleet at the request of the Bombay government, was judged not to have been proved, and was dismissed.

[1][13] His commander, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew placed him in charge of the inshore squadron during the blockade of Toulon in Autumn 1813, and on 5 November 1813 he became involved in one of the last clashes with the French Mediterranean Fleet.

[14] Strong gales in late October 1813 had forced both the British inshore squadron and the main battlefleet off their stations, and the French commander, Vice-Admiral Maxime Julien Émeriau de Beauverger, decided to make a sortie to exercise his fleet off Cape Sicié.

[17][18] Concerned about the sudden arrival of the British and unfavourable winds, Émeriau abandoned the exercises and ordered the fleet to make for Toulon.

The advanced squadron of the French fleet, commanded by Rear-Admiral Julien Cosmao-Kerjulien and consisting of five ships of the line and four heavy frigates, now found itself to leeward, beating back to port.

[17][19] The British ships tacked and wore, exchanging fire with the French until the wind carried Cosmao-Kerjulien's squadron under the safety of the shore batteries covering the approach to Toulon.

Their third son, Thomas Hamilton Heathcote, entered service with the East India Company, and died a lieutenant at Bombay in 1824 at the age of 20.

[14][20] In his retirement Heathcote devised improvements in the arrangement of staysails, taking out a patent in 1823, and publishing his theory in a treatise in 1824 entitled Treatise on Stay-Sails, For the Purpose of Intercepting Wind Between the Square-Sails of Ships and Other Square-Rigged Vessels, Mathematically Demonstrating the Superiority of the Improved Patent Stay-Sails, Recently Invented by Captain Sir Henry Heathcote.

[1] The work was reviewed by The Naval and Military Magazine, which came to the opinion that "However elaborate the diagrams, practical proofs must always be preferred on professional points; and, though the baronet [sic] is backed by Euclid, and assures his readers he is supported in his theory by the opinions of experienced officers, it is not too much here to assert, that the majority of both the new and old school will dispute the utility of staysails, in any shape, set 'upon a wind;' and few, it is presumed, will approve of the cut of Sir Henry's jib.