John Lindsay (Royal Navy officer)


 * For other people of this name, see John Lindsay (disambiguation).

Admiral Sir John Lindsay KB (1737 – 4 June 1788) was a British naval officer of the 18th century, and the father of Dido Elizabeth Belle.

Family
His parents were Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick or Evelix (near Dornoch in Easter Ross) and Amelia Murray, daughter of David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield and Mansfield.

John's sister Margaret Lindsay was tutored in painting by Allan Ramsay, with whom (in 1752) she later eloped and married, as his second wife — her parents were alienated from her by the marriage, but her brother John remained loyal to her until her death in 1782.

Havana
John joined the navy during the Seven Years' War. He was made a lieutenant in 1756 commanding the fireship Pluto, and as such was present on Sir Edward Hawke's 1757 expedition to attack Rochefort. On 29 September 1757 he was made captain of the 28-gun frigate HMS Trent from 1757 to 1763) and as such served in the West Indies and in home waters during the war. Trent was present in Sir George Pocock's fleet at the taking of Havana from the Spanish in 1762. During that action, he took over command of the 80-gun HMS Cambridge on 1 July when her commander William Goostrey was killed by rifle fire from the Morro Castle, which he was attempting to capture. For this and "many strong proofs of his valour" shown in the battle he was rewarded with a permanent command of HMS Cambridge, the 70-gun HMS Marlborough or the 74-gun HMS Dragon (it is unknown which he chose, and he was still in the Trent in December 1763) and a knighthood on his return to England (awarded 10 February 1764).

West and East Indies
Lindsay then returned to the West Indies, this time in command of the Tartar, carrying one of John Harrison's chronometers for tests and with Thomas Erskine as one of his midshipmen.

He returned to Britain in 1765. On 19 September 1768, he married Mary, daughter of Sir William Milner. They had no children. (At the end of his life, he had three illegitimate children — including Dido — by different women.) He was MP for Aberdeen Burghs from 1767 to 1768.

From August 1769 to March 1772 Lindsay was commodore and commander-in-chief of the East Indies Station, with his broad pennant flown from the frigate Stag. While in India, he was awarded the Order of the Bath (28 June 1770), though he was still a relatively junior sea officer. He was sent to investigate dealings between the British East India Company and the Indian nawabs. This made him unpopular with the Company and he was soon recalled.

Ushant
From March to May 1778 he was the very first captain of the first-rate HMS Victory, but was moved to be captain of the 90-gun HMS Prince George when Admiral Keppel decided to raise his flag in Victory (with John Campbell as his flag captain) when she was commissioned in May 1778. He commanded the Prince George in the disastrous Battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778 and, after giving evidence against Sir Hugh Palliser to the ensuing courts martial, he resigned straight after Keppel and refused to accept any command during Lord Sandwich's administration of the Admiralty, thus missing the American War of Independence.

Later life and death
Sandwich and his successors still appreciated Lindsay's ability, and he became an Admiralty Commissioner between April and December 1783 and then commodore and commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, with HMS Trusty as his flagship. As c-in-c he was present at Naples in June 1784, on 24 June entertaining the king and queen on board his ship. However, soon afterwards his health broke down, forcing him to return to England. He was promoted "rear admiral of the red" on 24 September 1787, but for health reasons held it as an honorary role rather than an active one. He died at Marlborough, on his way from a health trip to Bath, on 4 June 1788, aged fifty-one, and buried in Westminster Abbey.