Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Orde, John
ORDE, Sir JOHN (1751–1824), admiral, younger son of John Orde of East Orde and Morpeth (d. 1784), and brother of Thomas Orde-Powlett, first lord Bolton [q. v.] , was born on 22 Dec. 1751 (Foster). He entered the navy in 1766 on board the Jersey, with Commodore Spry, in the Mediterranean; afterwards served on the Newfoundland station with Commodore Byron, and in the West Indies with Sir George Rodney, who, on 7 April 1774, promoted him to be lieutenant of the Ferret sloop, and in July moved him to the Rainbow, in which he returned to England. In July 1775 he went out to North America in the Roebuck with Captain Andrew Snape Hamond [q. v.] From her he was moved in 1777 to the Eagle, Lord Howe's flagship, and early in 1778 was promoted to command the Zebra sloop, in which he assisted at the reduction of Philadelphia and the forts of the Delaware. On 19 May 1778 he was posted to the Virginia frigate, which, in 1779, was part of the force under Sir George Collier [q.v.] in the expedition up the Penobscot. In 1780 Orde took part in the reduction of Charlestown [see Arbuthnot, Marriott], and in October was appointed to the Chatham. The following July, when Arbuthnot was recalled, he hoisted his flag in the Roebuck, and moved Orde into her as his flag-captain; and during the rest of the war Orde commanded the Roebuck in the North Sea and on the coast of France. In 1783 Orde was appointed governor of Dominica, restored to England at the peace, but the island for the next year was infested by bodies of negroes, who had obtained arms and taken to the mountains. Orde's energy in restoring quiet and security won for him the thanks of the settlers, and on 27 July 1790 he was created a baronet. On the outbreak of the revolutionary war he obtained leave to resign his government and return to active service in the navy. He was appointed to the Victorious, from which he moved to the Venerable, and afterwards to the Prince George, all attached to the Channel fleet.
On 1 June 1795 he attained the rank of rear-admiral, and, after a few weeks in temporary command at Plymouth during the early part of 1797, hoisted his flag on board the Princess Royal, and joined Lord St. Vincent off Cadiz as third in command. In the summer of 1798 Orde was deeply mortified at finding that Sir Horatio Nelson, a junior officer, had been sent into the Mediterranean in command of a squadron on particular service; and the more so as the arrival of Sir Roger Curtis in the fleet reduced him to fourth in command. This led him to complain to St. Vincent, in letters which that strict disciplinarian considered so highly improper that he ordered Orde to shift his flag into the Blenheim and return to England [see Jervis, John, Earl of St. Vincent]. On his arrival he applied for a court-martial, which the admiralty refused to grant, and on the return of St. Vincent took the earliest opportunity of demanding personal satisfaction. This, however, was forbidden by the king, and so the matter rested, the two principals being bound over in 5,000l. to seep the peace. But in 1802 Orde published the correspondence relating to the affair, which in 1799 had been printed for private circulation.
He became a vice-admiral on 14 Feb. 1799, and, on the removal of St. Vincent from the admiralty, in the autumn of 1804 accepted the command of a squadron off Cape Finisterre, whence, shortly afterwards, he was sent to keep watch off Cadiz, much to the disgust of Nelson, who complained bitterly of Orders presence as interfering with his command and depriving him of its emoluments (Nicolas, vi. 289, 319, 358-9, 392, &c.) In April 1805, when Villeneuve escaped through the Straits of Gibraltar, and was joined by some of the Spanish ships off Cadiz, Orde was obliged to retire before the very superior force; and conjecturing that the enemy meant to go to Brest, he went north and joined Lord Gardner, when, in accordance with a previous request, he was ordered to Spithead and to strike his flae. In the general promotion of 9 Nov. 1805 he became admiral of the blue. He was one of the pall-bearers at the funeral of Lord Nelson, or whose character he is said to have been a warm admirer. The admiration was not reciprocated. On the death of Lord Bolton in 1807, his son, succeeding to the title, vacated his seat in parliament for Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to which Orde was then nominated, and which he represented till his death, after a long and painful illness, on 19 Feb. 1824.
Orde was twice married: first, in 1781, to Margaret Emma, daughter of Richard Stephens of Charlestown, South Carolina, who died without issue in 1790; secondly, in 1798, to Jane, daughter of John Frere [q. v.] of Roydon Hall, Norfolk, and sister of John Hookham Frere [q. v.], by whom he left issue a daughter and one son, John Powlett Orde, who succeeded to the baronetcy. A portrait of Orde in a captain's uniform — when he was at least twenty-seven, but representing a handsome, rosy-faced lad, apparently not twenty — was lent to the Naval Exhibition of 1891 by Orde's grandson.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. i. 69; Ralfe's Nav. Biogr. ii. 57; Nicolas's Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, freq. and especially vol. vi. (see Index at end of vol. vii.); Foster's Baronetage.]