Details of his early life are obscure, but he appears to have served initially in the English Channel and the Mediterranean, before obtaining the rank of captain and going out to North America with Commodore Joshua Rowley.

Returning to Britain at the end of the war, he spent a period without active employment, before receiving a post as second captain aboard Lord Howe's flagship, the 100-gun HMS Queen Charlotte, during the Spanish Armament.

[2] He followed his father into the navy in 1761, spending time in the English Channel and the Mediterranean, but few details of his early service survive, other than that he took his lieutenant's examination in 1767, and received his commission on 21 January 1771.

[4][5] The Suffolk arrived in the Leeward Islands on 12 February 1779, and Christian remained with Rowley in the West Indies, serving with Vice-Admiral John Byron at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779.

[3][4] He and Fortunee formed part of Sir Samuel Hood's fleet, with Christian being present at the Battle of St. Kitts on 25 and 26 January 1782, attached to the centre division.

[3][9] He was then appointed commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands Station in 1796,[10] and was instructed to take a fleet out with a convoy of transports, carrying soldiers for operations against the French and Dutch colonies there.

[9] He duly hoisted his flag aboard the 98-gun HMS Prince George and assembled his squadron and the transports, numbering over two hundred merchants carrying 16,000 men, and making up the largest troop convoy to leave England to that date.

[3][9] Christian shifted his flag to the 90-gun HMS Glory, after deeming the Prince George to be too badly damaged to take to sea, and after gathering his fleet again, set sail on another attempt to cross the Atlantic on 9 December.

[9][12] Again the ships encountered severe gales that caused considerable damage, forcing nine of the warships and fifty of the merchantmen to struggle back to port on 29 January.

[13] Christian again shifted his flag, this time to the 74-gun HMS Thunderer, while he waited for repairs to his ships to be completed, and the merchantmen gathered to make a third attempt to reach the West Indies.

[14] He was advanced to rear-admiral of the white on 20 February 1797, and was appointed as second in command of the Cape of Good Hope Station later in the year and duly sailed to take up the post on the 44-gun HMS Virginie.

[15][17] Hugh Cloberry Christian had been created a peer, and chose the title of Lord Ronaldsway to honour his ancestor, Manx politician Illiam Dhone, but died before the patent reached him.