Royal Naval Biography/Harris, James
JAMES HARRIS, Esq.
[Commander.]
Son of a respectable attorney, in practice at Leominster, co. Hereford.
This officer was born on the 15th April, 1791; and appears to have entered into the royal navy as midshipman on board la Virginie frigate. Captain (now Sir John Poo) Beresford, Aug. 3d, 1803. His first cruise was in the North Sea, where he at once got well seasoned, in a gale of wind which lasted for three weeks with unabated fury. During this storm, la Virginie lost her main and mizen top-masts, sprung her bowsprit and foremast, and became so leaky, that it was with the utmost difficulty she could be navigated into port. In Aug. 1804, after having been for some time employed as a block-ship in the Downs, she was, in consequence of her shattered state, put out of commission.
Mr. Harris next joined the Cambrian frigate, commanded by his former captain; and was present in that ship at the capture of three French privateers, on the Halifax station, in the summer of 1805[1]. Previous to his return home in May, 1807, he was placed in charge of a detained American schooner, which vessel, after an ineffectual attempt to reach Halifax, and narrowly escaping destruction on Sable Island, was obliged to bear up for Bermuda, with so small a stock of provisions, that every one on board must have perished, but for the timely assistance rendered by an English letter of marque.
In July, 1807, we find Mr. Harris following Captain Beresford into the Theseus 74, then employed in the blockade of Ferrol, and subsequently of Rochefort. He was in that ship when she, in company with three others, under the orders of her captain, prevented eight sail of the line from forming a junction with the l’Orient squadron, Feb. 21st, 1809; he commanded her pinnace, employed in covering the retreat of the officers and men belonging to fire-vessels, sent against the same squadron, anchored near l’Isle d’Aix, April 11th, 1809; and he subsequently bore a part in the operations of the Walcheren expedition. On the 26th Feb. 1810, in consequence of favorable representations personally made to the Board of Admiralty by Sir John Poo Beresford, he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant, and about the same lime appointed to serve under his constant patron, in the Poicters 74, then fitting out at Chatham.
After Lord Wellington’s famous retreat to the lines of Torres Vedras, the Poictiers being then in the river Tagus, her barge, commanded by Lieutenant Harris, assisted in supporting the right of the British army, resting for some months at Villa Franca, eighteen miles above Lisbon; and on Marshal Massena’s retreat from Santarem, she assisted in cutting off several hundreds of his rear-guard; and also in crossing Lord Hill’s division from Mugem to the south side of the river.
The Poictiers was afterwards stationed in Basque roads, where Lieutenant Harris commanded her launch, and greatly distinguished himself in an action between the boats of the squadron under Sir Harry Neale, and those of the French ships, which that officer was then blockading. On this occasion, the barge of the Poictiers was sunk by the enemy’s land batteries, one of her marines killed, and, including several other casualties, Lieutenant W. Knight, of the Arrow schooner, mortally wounded.
On the breaking out of the American war, in 1812, the Poictiers proceeded to the Halifax station, and was employed in the blockade of the river Delaware, up which her boats were very frequently sent to annoy the enemy. On one of these occasions, an officer and a party of marines having been taken prisoners. Lieutenant Harris was sent under a flag of truce to effect their exchange, with orders, in case the ship should go in chase, to rendezvous on board a prize sloop at anchor in the mouth of the river. This he did for the night; and next morning, although with only one midshipman and a single boat’s crew, succeeded in capturing an American East Indiaman, of 20 guns, returning home ignorant of the war. On the Poictiers joining company, as money was much wanted for the payment of troops at Bermuda, Sir John Beresford proposed to ransom this valuable prize; and in the course of a week £645,000. sterling was sent down from Philadelphia for that purpose.
The subject of this memoir was advanced to his present rank on the 23d of June, 1815. He married, July 31st, 1821, Elizabeth Anne, only daughter of the late Rev. Henry Beavan, rector of Whitton, co. Radnor.