[1][2] His father, Charles Broughton, was a Hamburg merchant and his mother, Anne Elizabeth, was the daughter of Baron William de Hertoghe.

He was appointed to the 64-gun Eagle on 1 July 1778, then in December he joined the seventy-four, Superb as a Master's mate and began service in the East Indies.

[2][6] The fitting out caused a long delay and the ship didn't sail until February 1795 and when Broughton finally returned to north-west America, he was unable to locate Vancouver.

[2] From September 1796 Broughton charted the east coast of Honshu and Hokkaidō before wintering at Macau where he purchased a small schooner to assist the Providence.

Finding extensive shallows at the north end of the gulf it was falsely concluded that Sakhalin was part of the mainland (a common mistake).

Broughton turned south along the coast of Korea and then headed home by way of Trincomalee, Ceylon, where the crew was paid off and he was court-martialled for the loss of his ship.

[3] Having been kept from the greater part of the French Revolutionary War by his book, Broughton resumed his active naval career on 23 June 1801, when he was given command of the 50-gun Batavier in The Channel.

[3][11] In November 1810, Broughton, still in command of Illustrious, took part in the Mauritius Campaign, joining a fleet off the island of Rodriquez, under Vice-admiral Albemarle Bertie.

On 29 November, this fleet landed around 10,000 troops at Grande-Baie, north-east of Port-Louis, on the Isle de France which capitulated five days later on 3 December.