A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Tracy, John Joseph Clapp Harding
TRACY. (Lieut., 1837. f-p., 22; h-p., 2)
John Joseph Clapp Harding Tracy is son of Commander John Tracy, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, 9 July, 1823, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Queen Charlotte 100, Capt. Jas. Nash, lying at Portsmouth; where he removed, in Feb. 1824, to the Victory 100, Capt. Chas. Inglis. From April, 1826, until Jan. 1830, he served (he had already attained the rating of Midshipman) in the West Indies in the Espiègle 18, Capts. Rich. Augustus Yates, Williams Sandom, Henry Gosset, Joseph O’Brien, Chas. Ramsay Drinkwater (now Bethune), and Russell Eliott. He then again joined, for rather more than three months, the Victory, Capt. Hon. Geo. Elliot; and he was next, from 8 Sept. 1830 until 8 Jan. 1834, and from 19 Jan. 1834 until 22 Sept. 1837, employed as Mate in the Rainbow 28, Capt. Sir John Franklin, and Charybdis 36, Lieut.-Commander Sam. Mercer, in the Mediterranean and on the coast of Africa. On 30 of the month last mentioned he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. His appointments have since been – 16 Dec. 1837, to the Lily 16, Capt. John Reeve, with whom he returned to the coast of Africa – 28 Nov. 1839, after six months of half-pay, to the Wanderer 16, Capts. Hon. Joseph Denman, Stephen Grenville Fremantle, and Geo. Henry Seymour, in which vessel he was for four years and seven months employed on the African and China stations, the chief part of the time as First-Lieutenant, including about four weeks that he acted as Commander – and 18 July, 1845, to the charge, which he still retains, of a station in the Coast Guard. On 19 Nov. 1840 he landed at the Gallinas, and after having destroyed the factories, brought off a number of slaves, whom he conveyed, in the prize-vessel Vanguarda, to Sierra Leone. In an engagement with some pirates off Acheen, on the coast of Sumatra, Mr. Tracy, who had charge of the Wanderer’s boats, and was in company with those of the Haeleqdin, had 4 men wounded, one of them severely, in his own boat, the pinnace.