Henry Stewart

Posted by Albert Parker on Saturday 11th of September 2021 19:10

Stewart is described as the commanding officer of /Lively/, 20, in the action with /Eltham/, 40, against a 4-ship convoy of the Spanish Compañía Real Guipuzcoana de Caracas, or "Carraca Company," off St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, on APRIL 1/12, 1742. A letter from St. Kitts published in /The Gentleman's Magazine/, vol. 12 (June 1742), p. 330, describes him as "Capt. Stewart". The /GM/ item is probably the source for a similar attribution by Robert Beatson, /Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain/, vol. I, p. 148, but William Laird Clowes, /The Royal Navy, A History/, vol. III, p. 272 calls him "Commander Henry Stewart." John Charnock, /Biographia Navalis?, vol. V, p. 260, in his item on Henry Stewart, quotes a footnote from Tobias Smollet's /History of England from the Revolution to the Death of Geroge II/, vol. III (1785 ed.), p. 87, referring to "captain Stewart." These could all be using "captain" as the usual courtesy title for the commanding officer of any ship at sea. He is not mentioned as CO of /Lively/ by Winfield. However, the senior officer in the incident with the Caracca company conavoy, Captain Edward Smith of /Eltham/ recorded in his journal (TNA, ADM 51/309) for April 2, 1742, "I sent for Captain Stewart & at the same time my own officers ... to consult about attacking the Enemy again," so there does not seem to be any question that someone with the surname "Stewart" was CO of /Lively/ on that date. (My researcher in London could not find a captain's journal for /Lively/ at that timee.)

/Lively/, a sixth rate, was entitled to a captain as CO, and a confirmed appointment to that position entitled the appointee to the rank of captain, but Stewart does not seem to have been accorded that privilege. Note that the action off St. Thomas occurred some six weeks before the appointment as a "commander" on /Lively/. Since /Lively/ and /Eltham/ were ships of the Leeward Islands on a cruise from there, Stewart must have been transferred to her from /Severn/ some time in March 1742 at the latest.