James Walker (Royal Navy officer)

His career was almost ended with an accusation of disobeying orders, which led to his dismissal from the navy, but he was reinstated in time to develop a plan to subdue the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore.

The early part of the Napoleonic Wars were spent in the Caribbean, where Walker played an important role in the Haitian Revolution, and took the surrender of a French garrison.

After time spent escorting convoys, Walker joined the ships covering the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil, and struck up a friendship with the Prince Regent.

[2] He went out to Jamaica in January 1777, but returned to British waters for service in the North Sea and then the English Channel with Sir Charles Hardy's fleet during the invasion crisis in 1779.

[a] Walker was appointed to act as lieutenant on 18 June 1781 and was assigned to HMS Torbay, part of Sir Samuel Hood's squadron despatched to North America.

There the local lodge of freemasons offered him financial assistance, and on his arrival at Mainz he was presented to the Prince-Bishop, Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal.

[1][5] Despite this, Walker returned to service in the Royal Navy in 1789, with an appointment on 11 September to the 24-gun HMS Champion, based at Leith under Captain Sampson Edwards.

[2][5] He was back on active service from 2 December with an appointment to the 98-gun HMS Boyne, intended as the flagship of Walker's old commander, now Rear-Admiral Philip Affleck.

[2][3] Boyne escorted a convoy of ships of the East India Company to the Tropic of Capricorn, and Walker remained with her until shortly after the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France.

[6][7] He received an appointment on 15 July 1795 to the temporary command of the 50-gun HMS Trusty, and was ordered to escort five East Indiamen to a safe latitude, and then to return to Spithead.

[1][8] However the Spanish authorities were greatly incensed, arresting five of Trusty's officers while she was at Cadiz on charges of having smuggled the merchant's money out of the port, and demanding Walker be court-martialled.

Walker justified himself by pointing to the imminent alliance between France and Spain, but despite the Lords of the Admiralty being sympathetic to his cause, he was found guilty of disobeying orders, and was dismissed from the navy.

[1][2][8] The Lords advised him to join the fleet despatched to the West Indies under Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian, but it was dispersed by gales and the ship Walker was travelling on returned to port.

Walker proposed an attack on the mutinous ships at the Nore using heavily armed gunboats, fitted with carronades, and was commissioned by the Admiralty on 10 June to carry this out.

[8] As she approached the Dutch fleet Walker gathered the crew and addressed them saying 'My lads, you see your enemy; I shall lay you close aboard and give you an opportunity of washing the stain off your characters in the blood of your foes.

[2] Monmouth, which had lost five men killed and 22 wounded, took Alkmaar in tow, and despite sailing through a strong gale, reached the shelter of Yarmouth roads five days later.

[11] The battle was a decisive victory for the British over the Dutch, and Walker was among those captains rewarded, having his post rank confirmed on 17 October, and receiving the Naval Gold Medal and the thanks of parliament.

Isis was assigned to the Baltic expedition under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, and joined Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson's squadron for the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801.

[1] The plan of attack had to be improvised at the last minute, after several ships ran aground while trying to enter the harbour, including Nelson's flagship, HMS Elephant.

[1][12] With the resumption of hostilities in 1803 he was assigned to the Blockade of Saint-Domingue, and captured the 44-gun French frigate Créole, bound for Port au Prince with 530 troops under General Morgan.

[1][12] In doing so he saved their lives, but as his provisions were rapidly exhausted he was forced to return to port to resupply at the point at which Cape François was about to fall, and so missed out on a considerable sum of prize money.

[16] After returning to Spithead Walker was assigned to the Guernsey station under Sir Edmund Nagle, where he was given command of a squadron of three frigates and a brig to watch the enemy at St Malo.

[16] In the summer of 1814 Walker was selected to accompany the Duke of Clarence on his journey to Boulogne to collect Tsar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia.

During the campaign the senior naval officers, Sir Alexander Cochrane and Rear-Admirals Pulteney Malcolm and Edward Codrington, went ashore, leaving Walker to manage the fleet, which owing to the shoal water, had to be kept a hundred miles offshore.

His commanding officer, William Young, once complimented him for keeping Bedford in a state of high discipline without once resorting to a flogging over a period of five months and three weeks.

[2] Winfield's British Warships of the Age of Sail 1714–1792 records that Princess Royal, under Captain Harry Harmood, had been Rear-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's flagship at the Battle of Martinique on 17 April 1780, and subsequently at the Actions of 15 and 19 May 1780 against de Guichen's fleet.

Oil painting of a large number of sailing ships on a choppy sea. Men drift in small boats in the foreground, smoke and clouds fill the scenery.
The Battle of the Saintes, 12 April 1782: surrender of the Ville de Paris by Thomas Whitcombe , painted 1783.
Two large ships sail side by side locked in battle as heavy brown seas roll beneath them and clouds of smoke from other vessels in the background drift into frame. In the foreground, dozens of men cling to wreckage in the water or drift in small boats.
Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June
Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg , 1795.
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 ame 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 her deck.
The Battle of Camperdown, 11 October 1797 by Thomas Whitcombe , painted 1798.
Bird's eye view of a naval battle, with sailing ships arranged in two parallel lines running diagonally from the top left to the bottom right of the painting. A small cluster of ships in the bottom left. A dark sea and a cloudy sky, the buildings and spires of a city visible in the background.
The Battle of Copenhagen , by Nicholas Pocock
Three-quarter length portrait of a man with white hair, facing left, wearing a red coat and yellow breeches and waistcoat, a prominent sash with sword and various medals and ribbons. His right hand is tucked into the waistcoat, his left elbow rests on a pillar.
John VI of Portugal . Walker became a confidant during his time in Brazil while John was Prince Regent.
Memorial in St Leonard's Church, Seaford