A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Duff, Archibald
DUFF. (Rear-Admiral of the Red, 1840. f-p., 18; h-p., 41.)
Archibald Duff entered the Navy, 29 June, 1788, as a Boy, on board the Champion 24, Capt. Sampson Edwards, on the Leith station. In Jan. 1791, he became Midshipman of the Martin sloop, Capt. Geo. Duff, and with that officer he continued employed, in the Resource 23, Duke 98, Ambuscade 32, and Glenmore 50, until May, 1798. In the Duke he served under the broad pendant of Commodore Murray during the expedition against Martinique, in June, 1793. Having been awarded, when in the Ambuscade, a commission, dated 8 Dec. 1798, Mr. Duff, on leaving the Glenmore, was appointed to a Lieutenancy in the Foudroyant 80, Capt. Sir Thos. Bayard, on rejoining which ship, after a brief attachment to the Barfleur 98, we find him, while at the blockade of Malta, present with Lord Nelson at the capture, 18 Feb. 1800, of Le Généreux 74, and Ville de Marseilles store-ship. He soon after removed to the Queen Charlotte 100, bearing the flag of Lord Keith, and, on 17 March following, narrowly escaped involvement in the destruction of that ship, being on board when she took fire in Leghorn Roads. In the course of the same year he was promoted from the Minotaur 74, Capt. Thos. Louis, to the acting-command of the Bonne Citoyenne sloop; but his confirmation not taking place, he joined the Guillaume Tell 80, and next became First Lieutenant to Lord Keith, in his old ship the Foudroyant. After figuring in the Egyptian campaign, for his services during which he received the Turkish gold medal, Mr. Duff, who had been invested with the temporary command of the Mondovi brig, returned to England with Capt. Rich. Curry, R.N., and Major Henry Montressor, the officers charged with the naval and military despatches announcing the surrendar of Grand Cairo. Prior to his official promotion to the rank of Commander, 29 April, 1802, he appears to have repulsed an attack made on the Mondovi by 17 Spanish gun-boats in the Gut of Gibraltar, and to have been in command of the Lutine prison-ship at Minorca. Capt. Duff’s first appointment on the renewal of hostilities was, 25 Oct. 1803, to the Megaera fire-ship, in which, with a few small vessels occasionally under his orders, he was employed watching the enemy’s ports in the Channel. Assuming Post-rank 22 Jan. 1806, he next joined, 28 May, 1807, the Muros 20, and in that ship, after convoying a fleet of merchantmen to Halifax, was unfortunately wrecked on a reef at the entrance of the Bay of Honda, in Cuba, 24 March, 1808. His last employment was in the command, from 23 April, 1814, to Aug. 1815, of the President 38, on the Irish station. He attained Flag-rank 17 Aug. 1840.
Rear-Admiral Duff, when a Lieutenant of the Foudroyant, received a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society for his “intrepid and manly exertions” in jumping overboard, in a dark night of Sept. 1799, and saving the life of a man who had fallen into the sea. He married, 1 Dec. 1815, Frances, third daughter of the late Rev. Meredith Jones, of Guestling, co. Sussex. Agent – John P. Muspratt.