Samuel Jackson

Rear-Admiral Samuel Jackson (1775–16 January 1845) was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jackson joined the Royal Navy in 1790 and served before the French Revolutionary War in the cutter HMS Kite. He transferred in 1793 to the frigate HMS Romulus, in which he participated in the Siege of Toulon. After having served for a while in the Mediterranean Jackson transferred with the captain of Romulus, John Sutton, to the ship of the line HMS Egmont. In her Jackson fought in 1795 at the battles of Genoa and the Hyères Islands. In 1796, having been promoted to lieutenant and still in Egmont, Jackson was integral in the saving of the entire crew of the ship of the line HMS Bombay Castle off the Tagus during a large storm. In the following year he fought at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent and with Horatio Nelson at the Assault on Cádiz. In 1798 Jackson moved with Sutton to the ship of the line HMS Superb, where he became her first lieutenant. He remained in this position when Richard Goodwin Keats took command and they were deployed on the Cadiz blockade. Superb distinguished herself at the Second Battle of Algeciras in 1801. Jackson was given command of one of the prizes from the battle, the ship of the line San Antoine. Despite being vastly outnumbered by the captives on board, Jackson distinguished himself by successfully subduing an attempted take over and bringing the ship safely to Gibraltar. For his services in San Antoine and the battle he was promoted to commander. In 1803 he was given command of the sloop HMS Autumn in which he spent the majority of his time fighting the forces of the Boulogne Flotilla. He fought a number of engagements against the ships and fortifications of Calais and Boulogne in this period, and also in 1805 saved a large troop convoy under his control from destruction off the Texel. In 1807 Jackson, now commanding the brig HMS Musquito, was part of a squadron blockading Zealand in the Copenhagen Expedition. Jackson was promoted to post captain after this and given command of his old ship Superb at the end of the year. He served for a while in the English Channel and Mediterranean before going to the Baltic Sea where, again under the command of Richard Goodwin Keats,he participated in the evacuation of La Romana's division in 1808. After being frozen in at Gothenburg through the winter, Jackson then joined the Walcheren Expedition in 1809.