Royal Naval Biography/Savage, Henry
HENRY SAVAGE, Esq
Admiral of the White.
This officer obtained Post rank, Jan. 31, 1781, and in the ensuing summer we find him commanding the Boreas frigate, in the West Indies. He was Captain of the Hercules, of 74 guns, in the battle between Sir George B. Rodney and the Count de Grasse, April 12, 1782[1], on which occasion he gave a striking proof of coolness and undaunted bravery; for in the heat of the action, and when alongside of a ship of far superior force, he jumped on an arm-chest upon the quarterdeck, and cheered up his men by singing a few lines of
“O! what a charming thing ’s a battle !”
The Hercules had 7 men killed, and 19 wounded.
During the Spanish and Russian armaments, in 1790 and 1791, Captain Savage commanded the Pomona, a small frigate; and in 1795, the Albion, a 74-gun ship without a poop, employed in the North Sea; in which vessel he had the misfortune to be wrecked on the Middle-Sand, in the Swin, April 27, 1796. We next find him in the Warrior, another ship of the line, on the same station, from whence he proceeded to join the fleet in the Mediterranean under the orders of Earl St. Vincent. His subsequent promotions took place in the same order as those of the subject of the preceding sketch. Mrs. Savage died March 16, 1810, aged 75 years.