A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Jackson, Samuel
JACKSON, C.B. (Rear-Admiral of the Blue, 1841. f-p., 31; h-p., 24.)
Samuel Jackson was born in 1775, and died 16 Jan. 1845, at Bognor in Sussex. This officer entered the Navy, 14 July, 1790, as Midshipman, on board the Kite cutter, Lieut.-Commander B. Mitchell, in which vessel he served, principally against the smugglers on the Irish station, until the commencement of the war in 1793, when he was appointed Master’s Mate of the Romulus 36, Capt. John Sutton, and ordered to the Mediterranean. After witnessing the occupation of Toulon, commanding a boat also at the destruction of a nest of privateers in the island of Corsica, and uniting in an attack upon the forts and batteries of Bastia, he accompanied Capt. Sutton, in May, 1794, into the Egmont 74, and was thus afforded an opportunity of sharing in Hotham’s actions of 14 March and 13 July, 1795 (on the former of which occasions he was wounded), and of assisting in command of the Egmont’s barge at the cutting-out from Tunis Bay, 9 March, 1796, of the French vessels Nemesis of 28, and Sardine of 22 guns, together with a polacre mounting 20 guns. On 3 Nov. 1796, Mr. Jackson, whose name had been for a short time borne on the books of the Victory 100, bearing the flag of Sir John Jervis, was made Lieutenant into the Alliance store-ship, Capt. Wm. Cuming. Rejoining the Egmont almost immediately afterwards, he had the singular good fortune, in Dec. of the same year, to be the means under Providence of saving the whole of the officers and crew belonging to the Bombay Castle 74, when wrecked at the entrance of the Tagus. His most extraordinary and intrepid exertions, in collecting the boats of the squadron, then in leading them to the rescue, and in finally consummating the work of humanity by jeopardising his own life, called forth the thanks of the Court-Martial which subsequently assembled to try the Captain and crew of the Bombay Castle. After sharing in the battle off Cape St. Vincent, we find Lieut. Jackson assisting in the Egmont’s barge in a gallant attack made upon the Cadiz flotilla under Don Miguel Tynason, who had come out with a large force in order to cut off the Thunder bomb, during her retreat from before the walls of that city; on which occasion he had the honour of boarding the Don’s desperately-defended vessel on one quarter, while the immortal Nelson did so on the other. On the Egmont being paid off in the early part of 1798, Lieut. Jackson was appointed Senior of the Superb 74, commanded at first by Capt. Sutton and afterwards by Capt. Rich. Goodwin Keats, to whom he rendered able and active assistance in the action fought in the Gut of Gibraltar 12 July, 1801, and at its close was sent to take possession of the St. Antoine 74, prize to the Superb.[1] As a reward for his valour in the conflict he was advanced to the rank of Commander on 18 of the ensuing Aug. His next appointment was, 10 May, 1803, to the Autumn 16; and in the course of the same year, by order of Rear-Admiral Robt. Montagu, he assumed the direction of a small squadron stationed off Calais, for the purpose of preventing the gun-vessels in that port from forming a junction with the Boulogne flotilla, a service then of the utmost importance. His first operation was an attack of several hours, made on 27 Sept., upon the enemy’s gunboats in Calais pier, which provoked a heavy fire from the French in all directions, and gained the high approval of the Commander-in-Chief Lord Keith.[2] The second affair appears to have been at the commencement of 1804, when the Autumn had 1 man killed and 6 others wounded, in an attempt upon a division of the enemy’s flotilla, several of which, although under the protection of formidable land-batteries, were driven on the beach; – the third, on the evening of the 19th and the morning of the 20th July, when the decisive promptness exhibited by Capt. Jackson, in annoying a detachment of the enemy, and thereby preventing its reaching its destination in safety, again elicited the approbation of Lord Keith, and of the Lords of the Admiralty;[3] – and the last, during the celebrated catamaran expedition against the Boulogne flotilla, on which occasion he was intrusted with the charge of one of the principal explosion-vessels, and evinced a wonderful degree of gallantry and presence of mind.[4] During a subsequent command (which he held from Oct. 1804 until the summer of 1807) of the Mosquito 18, we successively discover Capt. Jackson effecting the capture, 13 April, 1805, of the French privateers Orestes and Pylades, of 1 gun, 6 swivels, and 33 men each – escorting, towards the close of the same year, a fleet of transports with 5000 troops, &c., for Lord Cathcart’s army in Hanover – commanding a detachment on the Calais and Boulogne stations, where the Mosquito in one instance fell in with five of the enemy’s armed schooners, two of which were driven on shore and destroyed – directing a number of rocket-boats in an attack made in Oct. 1806, upon the flotilla at Boulogne – and ultimately accompanying the expedition to Copenhagen, during the operations connected with which he was stationed in the Belt to prevent supplies being thrown into the island of Zealand. On the surrender of the Danish fleet, he was appointed Acting-Captain of the Surveillante 38, in which frigate he returned to England. His official promotion to Post rank taking place 5 Nov. 1807, Capt. Jackson, on 8 of the following month, was appointed to the Superb 74, bearing the flag of his former Commander, Rear-Admiral Keats. Continuing in that ship until paid of in Oct. 1809, he went, in consequence, to the Mediterranean in pursuit of a French squadron which had effected its escape from Rochefort – superintended the embarkation from Nyeborg, in Aug. 1808, of the Spanish army under the Marquis de la Romana[5] – was in the Superb when, frozen up at Gottenborg in Jan. 1809, she was only extricated by a canal being cut through four miles of ice – and in the following Aug. accompanied the force sent to the Walcheren. Capt. Jackson’s subsequent appointments were – 14 Jan. 1812, to the Poictiers 74, in which he prevented a French squadron from entering the port of Brest – 21 Dec. 1812, to the Lacedemonian 38, stationed off the coast of North America, whence, after blockading the enemy’s ports and rivers between Cape Fear and Amelia Island, co-operating in the attacks on fort St. Petre and the town of St. Mary’s, and participating in the capture of property calculated at more than half a million sterling, he returned to England in June, 1815 – 29 Aug. 1815, to the Niger 38, in which frigate he first conveyed Hon. Chas. Bagot as Ambassador to the United States, then escorted Sir John Sherbrooke, Governor of Canada, from Halifax to Quebec, and served as Senior officer on the coast of Nova Scotia until Sept. 1817, when, owing to her being found unserviceable, he returned home with his officers and crew in a transport – 29 Oct. 1822, to a three years’ command of the Ordinary at Sheerness – 5 April, 1836, to the Bellerophon 80, fitting for the Mediterranean, where he remained for about twenty months – and 19 Feb. 1838, to the command of the Royal Sovereign yacht, and the Superintendentship of Pembroke Dockyard. He was superseded in the latter appointment on his attainment of Flag-rank 23 Nov. 1841, and not again employed.
Rear-Admiral Jackson was nominated a C.B. 8 Dec. 1815. He married, 6 Dec. 1817, Clarissa Harriet, daughter of Capt. Madden, Agent for the Portsmouth division of Royal Marines, and niece of Major-General Sir Geo. Madden, Kt., K.T.S., by whom he has left issue two sons, Chas. Keats, a Lieutenant R.N., and Geo. Edw. Owen, Second-Lieutenant R.M., 1842. His youngest son, Outram Montagu, who had been educated at Addiscombe, died in the East Indies 17 March, 1844, a few months only after he had been appointed an Ensign of the 26th Native Infantry. Agents – Messrs. Ommanney.