A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Long, James
LONG. (Retired Commander, 1842. f-p., 20; h-p., 30.)
James Long was born 17 April, 1774.
This officer entered the Navy, 1 Feb. 1797, as A.B., on board the Sybille, of 48 guns, Capts. Edw. Cooke, Wm. Waller, and Chas. Adam; and was a Midshipman of that ship in Jan. 1798, when, in company with the Fox 32, she entered the Spanish harbour of Manilla under French disguise, although three sail of the line and three frigates belonging to the enemy were lying there, and succeeded, besides eliciting much information, in capturing seven boats, about 200 men, numerous implements of war, and a large quantity of ammunition. In the course of the same month, he joined in an attack made by the Sybille and Fox on the settlement of Samboangon in the island of Magindanao, where, in an action with a fort and battery, the two ships sustained a loss of 6 men killed and 16 wounded. On 1 March, 1799, we find him present, off the sand-heads of Bengal River, in a most furious engagement of two hours and a half, which terminated in the Sybille’s capture of the French frigate La Forte, of 52 guns and 370 men, after a loss to the latter of 65 (including her Captain) killed, and 80 wounded, and to the British, out of 371 men, of 5 killed and 17 (Capt. Cooke himself being mortally) wounded. The damage done to each ship was in proportion to her loss. Independently of a participation in other services, Mr. Long assisted, while under Capt. Adam, at the capture and destruction, 23 Aug. 1800, of five Dutch armed vessels and 22 merchantmen in Batavia Roads. He further contributed, in the following Oct., to the making prize of 24 Dutch proas, four of which mounted 6 guns each; and on 19 Aug. 1801 (when off Mahe, the principal of the Seychelle Islands) he aided in taking, with a loss to the Sybille (out of 300 men) of 2 killed and 1 wounded, of La Chiffonne of 42 guns and 296 men, 23 of whom were killed and 30 wounded. This action, a very gallant one of 20 minutes, was attended with the disadvantage to the British of being fought among rocks and shoals, and under the fire of an enemy’s battery. Following Capt. Adam, on his return to England in 1803, into his prize La Chiffonne, which had been added to the British Navy as a 36-gun frigate, Mr. Long proceeded on a cruize to the North Sea, where he next, it appears, joined the Monarch 74, bearing the flag of Lord Keith, and Edgar 74, Capts. John Clarke Searle and Robt. Jackson. He attained the rank of Lieutenant 7 Nov. 1806; and was subsequently appointed – 26 Dec. 1806, to the Otter sloop, Capts. John Davis and Nesbit Josiah Willoughby, in which vessel he witnessed the evacuation of Monte Video in 1807, and the capture of St. Paul’s, Ile de Bourbon, in Sept. 1809 – 21 Nov. in the latter year, to the Sapphire sloop, Capt. Hon. Wm. Gordon, with whom he returned to England – 18 Dec. 1810, and 25 June, 1811, to the Phipps 14, and Mosquito 18, Capts. Christopher Bell and Jas. Tomkinson, stationed in the Downs and North Sea, where he cruized until superseded in April, 1813 – 8 March, 1837, to the command of the Semaphore on Portsdown Hill – and 25 Oct. 1841, to a Rendezvous for seamen in the Isle of Man, which closed a month afterwards. He accepted his present rank 11 Feb. 1842.
Commander Long married, 27 Oct. 1827, Jacobina, youngest daughter of Jas. Young, Esq., of Lanark, N.B., by whom he has issue five children.