A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Duncan, Thomas
DUNCAN. (Retired Commander, 1832. f-p., 16; h-p., 38.)
Thomas Duncan entered the Navy, 24 April, 1793, as Ordinary, on board the Thames, of 32 guns and 184 men, Capt. Jas. Cotes. On 24 Oct. following, being on his passage to Gibraltar, he took part in a furious drawn action of nearly an hour’s duration with the French frigate Uranie, of 44 guns and 320 men. The Thames, which on that occasion was dreadfully cut up, and sustained a loss of 11 men killed and 23 wounded, was unfortunately, however, captured in the course of the same day by one of the enemy’s squadrons. After nearly two years’ imprisonment, Mr. Duncan was at length, in Aug. 1795, restored to liberty. He then joined the Vesuvius bomb, Capts. Facey and Robt. Lewis Fitzgerald; and while in that vessel was present at the bombardment of Havre by a squadron under Sir Rich. Strachan, and assisted at the destruction of La Confiante, of 36 guns, and of a French national cutter, 31 May, 1798. Returning home afterwards from the Mediterranean in the Tonnant 80, Mr. Duncan became attached to the Nereide 36, Capt. Fred. Watkins; under whom we find him participating in the capture, 2 March, 1800, of La Vengeance privateer, of 16 guns and 174 men, and, the next day, of a ship, with a cargo on board of the value of 30,000l. After a continued servitude, as Master’s Mate and Midshipman, in the Cambrian 40, Capt. Hon. Arthur Kaye Legge, and Windsor Castle 98, bearing the flag in the Channel of Sir Andrew Mitchell, he was promoted to a Lieutenancy in the latter ship by commission dated 5 Sept. 1801. His subsequent appointments were – 19 May, 1803, to the Serapis 44, Capt. Henry Waring, under whom he assisted at the reduction, in May, 1804, of the Dutch settlement of Surinam – 31 Oct. 1804, to the Amelia and Ethalion frigates, Capts. John Chas. Wolcombe and Wm. Chas. Fahie, in the latter of which he served at the capture of the Danish West India Islands in Dec. 1807 – and, 27 July, 1808, to the Namur 74, flag-ship at the Nore of Vice-Admiral Wells. This officer, who has been on half-pay since 1810, acquired the rank of Retired Commander 30 March, 1832.