A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Spratt, James
SPRATT. (Retired Commander, 1838. f-p., 18; h-p., 33.)
James Spratt, born 3 May, 1771, at Harrel’s Cross, co. Dublin, is son of the late ___ Spratt, Esq., of Ballybeg, near Mitchelstown, co. Cork; and brother-in-law of the late John Abel Ward, Esq., Judge in the Admiralty Court at Nevis. This officer entered the Navy, 26 Sept. 1796, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board L’Engageant receiving-ship at Cork, Capt. Fry. In Jan. 1797 he removed to the Sheerness 44, Capt. Jas. Conwallis; and in Jan. 1798, after having visited the coast of Guinea and the West Indies, he became Midshipman (a rating he had already attained) of the Bellona 74, Capts. Geo. Wilson, Sir Thos. Boulden Thompson, and Thos. Bertie; in which ship he cruized off Brest, made a second voyage to the West Indies, fought at the battle of Copenhagen, and then proceeded to the Mediterranean. At Copenhagen he was in attendance upon Sir T. B. Thompson when the latter suffered amputation of the leg. A gun he was in the act, on the same occasion, of firing, burst and killed or wounded nearly all around. The Bellona being put out of commission in July, 1802, he was next, in the early part of 1803, received on board the Defiance 74, Capt. Philip Chas. Durham, under whom he had the fortune of sharing, as Master’s Mate, in Sir Robt. Calder’s action 22 July, 1805, and of participating, 21 Oct. following, in the glories of Trafalgar. On that memorable day Mr. Spratt distinguished himself in a most extraordinary manner. After the Defiance and Aigle 74 had been for some time hotly engaged, and the fire of the French ship, within pistol-shot of her opponent, had slackened, Capt. Durham, in the hope that a breeze, it being at the time a dead calm, would spring up and enable him to board, made his arrangements accordingly. At this juncture, animated with a spirit of impetuous heroism, Mr. Spratt, who had been selected to lead the men in the desperate service that awaited them, volunteered, as all the boats had been disabled, to board the enemy by swimming. His offer being accepted, he instantly, with his sword in his teeth and his battle-axe in his belt, dashed into the sea, calling at the same time upon 50 others to follow – a mandate, however, which, in the general din, was not heard, or at any rate not heeded. Undaunted, though alone, Mr. Spratt, on reaching the French ship, contrived, by means of the rudder-chains, to enter the stern gun-room port, and thence to fight his way through all the decks until he reached the poop. Here he was charged by three grenadiers with fixed bayonets, but, springing with dexterity over them by the assistance of the signal halyards, he got upon an arm-chest, and, before they could repeat the operation, disabled two of them. Seizing the third one, he threw him from the poop on the quarter-deck, where he fell and broke his neck, dragging with him Mr. Spratt, who, however, escaped injury. By this time the British, who had been at first repulsed, were engaged in a second more successful attempt to carry the enemy’s ship, and Mr. Spratt, who joined in the desperate hand-to-hand conflict raging on her quarter-deck, had the happiness of saving the life of a French officer from the fury of his assailants. Scarcely had he discharged this act of humanity when an endeavour was made by a grenadier to run him through with his bayonet. The thrust being parried, the Frenchman presented his musket at Mr. Spratt’s breast; and although the latter succeeded in striking it down with his cutlass, the contents passed through his right leg a little below the knee, shattering both bones.[1] He immediately backed in between two of the quarter-deck guns, to prevent being cut down from behind; and in this position he continued to defend himself against his old tormentor and two others until at length relieved by some of his party. As soon as the Aigle’s colours had been struck, Mr. Spratt presented himself on her quarter, swung himself by one of the boat-tackle falls to the Defiance, and, resting on a lower-deck port which happened to be up, was carried into the cockpit. At first amputation of his leg was thought unavoidable, but this he positively refused to allow. He was afterwards sent to the hospital at Gibraltar, where the sufferings he endured were of the most agonizing description, and ended in reducing his leg three inches.[2] As a reward for his valiant conduct at Trafalgar, Mr. Spratt was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant by a commission dated 24 Dec. 1805. Having returned to England in the Britannia 100, Capt. Chas. Bullen, and not being able from the effects of his wound to go afloat, he obtained charge, in Oct. 1806, of a Signal station at Teignmouth, in Devon, where he remained until appointed, 1 March, 1813, to the Albion 74, Capt. John Ferris Devonshire. In her he served for about 12 months on the coast of North America. He invalided home in April, 1814, in the Sceptre 74, in consequence of acute pain which the preceding hard winter had reproduced in his leg; and he was lastly, from 30 Dec. following until 16 Oct. 1815, employed in command of the Ganges prison-ship at Plymouth. He was granted a pension of 91l. 5s. per annum for his wound 8 Jan. 1817; and invested with his present rank 17 July, 1838. Shortly after the battle of Trafalgar he was presented by the Patriotic Society with the sum of 50l.
On nine different occasions has Commander Spratt, during his career through life, had the good fortune to rescue the lives of others – often under circumstances of the greatest peril to himself. Once in particular, while serving in the Defiance, he jumped overboard, in the most intrepid and heroic manner possible, after a man named George Bradfort, who had fallen into the sea between two sharks. On 30 May, 1809, he was presented at the hands of the Duke of Norfolk with the silver medal of the Society of Arts, &c., for his invention of a “Homograph,” or mode of communicating at a distance by particular positions of a handkerchief. This contrivance formed the groundwork of the Semaphore afterwards adopted throughout England and France. Commander Spratt married, 4 April, 1809, Jane, daughter of Mr. Thos. Brimage, yeoman, of the parish of East Teignmouth, co. Devon, by whom he has issue three sons and six daughters. His eldest son, Thomas Abel Brimage, is a Lieutenant R.N.; his second, James, commands a country ship in India; and his youngest, Henry, is a First-Lieutenant R.M.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1805, p. 1484.
- ↑ On arriving at Gibraltar the pain Mr. Spratt endured was so acute that it brought on a fever, during the paroxysms of which the settings of his leg became deranged as fast as the surgeon could dress them. To obviate the inconvenience and danger arising from this it was resolved to encase the limb in a long box adapted to the purpose, and to allow it to remain in that state for nine days in order to facilitate the formation of callus. Long before the time prescribed had elapsed Mr. Spratt’s sufferings were greatly increased by a gnawing, unaccountable sensation, not attributable to the nature of his ailment. On the box being at length unlocked, a spectacle presented itself to the view of the medical officers present unparalleled in the history of their experience. Hundreds of maggote, an inch long, were stuck into the calf, with only the tips of their tails to be seen, the remainder of their bodies being embedded in the flesh. How to get rid of this astounding production was now the question. One of the surgeons essayed the effect of his forceps, but no sooner was the instrument applied than the creatures broke short off. A second doctor, however, more ingenious, ran to his medicine chest, and returned with a phial, the contents of which had the desired effect. This, the first case of the kind that occurred in the hospital, was accounted for by some of the numerous parasitical flies attracted there after the battle of Trafalgar having deposited their eggs in the wound.