James Spratt (Royal Navy officer)

[1] Commander James Spratt was famous for having dived into the sea from HMS Defiance, swimming cutlass in teeth to the French 74-gun Aigle, boarding her single handed.

He swung on a rope to avoid three grenadiers, then killed two with his cutlass and pushed the third down onto a lower deck where the soldier’s neck was broken, Spratt landing on top was uninjured.

At this time he invented the homograph, an early form of semaphore, for which he was presented with the Society of Arts silver medal by the Duke of Norfolk in May 1809.

[6] He served a year on the Albion with Captain John Ferris Devonshire until invalided home due to the terrible pains in his leg caused by the cold.

On his 60th birthday he swam the 14 miles (23 km) from Teignmouth to the Ore Stone off Brixham and back to win a wager he had made with a French officer.

In July 1805 before Trafalgar she had taken part in Admiral Robert Calder’s fight with a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Portugal.

After exchanging fire with the Spanish Principe de Asturias (112 guns) Defiance engaged the French L’Aigle, already badly damaged by HMS Bellerophon.

After silencing her, Defiance drifted away, and her master's mate James Spratt offered to lead a boarding party that would have to swim across because all the boats had been destroyed.

Spratt was well known on Defiance as an excellent swimmer, who had saved two men from drowning, and a fighter of some reputation, who had been appointed by Captain Durham to lead any boarding party and swimming across to L’Aigle.

There was a short sharp fight but Defiance managed to draw alongside and L’Aigle surrendered, though not before Spratt was severely wounded in one leg.

[9] It was in Woodway House, Teignmouth, that his son Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt was born in 1811 and at the age of 16 entered into the Royal Navy.