Edward Boscawen

Edward Boscawen

Edward Boscawen (born August 19, 1711 in Tregothnan near Falmouth , Cornwall , † January 10, 1761 in Hatchlands Park , Surrey ) was a British admiral.

Life

Born into a noble family from Cornwall , Edward Boscawen, son of the first Viscount of Falmouth , joined the Royal Navy in 1721 . In 1732 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1737 to commander . In 1739, during the War of Jenkins' Ear , he distinguished himself in the capture of Portobelo and the siege of Cartagena , where he and a handful of sailors stormed a battery of heavy Spanish artillery. In 1742, at the age of 31, he was given his own command for the first time, the Shoreham . In the same year he married Frances Evelyn-Glanville , with whom he had five children, and was elected to the British Parliament for Truro (Cornwall) . Two years later he was promoted to command of the 60-gun ship of the line Dreadnought , with which he distinguished himself when conquering the French frigate Médée , the first French warship to fall into the hands of the British during the War of the Austrian Succession .

Under the command of George Anson, 1st Baron Anson , he took part in the victorious naval battle of Cape Finisterre on May 17, 1747 as commandant of the Namur (74 cannons) and suffered a serious wound to the shoulder. On July 15 of that year he was given the rank of rear admiral and command of a fleet destined for India. With this he besieged the French possession of Pondicherry in the summer of 1748 , but had to break off the siege because of the approaching monsoons and the outbreak of diseases. After the end of the war, he took over Madras, which had been conquered by the French, for Great Britain. He returned to England in 1750 and was appointed Lords of the Admiralty the following year . In 1755 the Boscawen, promoted to Vice Admiral , was given command of a fleet that was to intercept French reinforcements for North America at the beginning of the French and Indian War ( Seven Years War ). The main part of the French fleet escaped, but in April he succeeded in capturing the two liners, Alcide and Lys , in which over 1,500 French seamen and soldiers fell into the hands of the British. The French naval officer de Hocquart , whom he had already captured on the Médée and Cape Finisterre, had to remove his flag for the third time in front of Boscawen.

Upon his return, Boscawen was hailed as a hero in England and received official thanks from Parliament. In 1758 he was promoted to admiral and command of the fleet, which, with General Jeffrey Amherst as commander of the land forces, besieged the French fortress Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island ( Canada ) and forced it to surrender, for which he again received thanks from parliament .

Boscawen returned to the English Channel and defeated the French Toulon fleet under Admiral de la Clue in 1759 in the battle of Lagos , in which the British captured three ships of the line, destroyed two and took 2,000 prisoners. The victory prevented a concentration of the French fleet in Brest for the purpose of an invasion of England. At the age of 50, Boscawen died in 1761 of a fever on his country estate, Hatchlands Park, Surrey, which he had built with his fortune, which was largely derived from prize money. He is buried in St. Michael in Penkivel near Truro.

His sentence has become known: “Certainly, I will not harvest the fruits of the earth. But I collect the flowers of the sea for it. "

The English poet and squire Richard Owen Cambridge , who was friends with a number of high-ranking naval officers around George Anson, 1st Baron Anson , was also among his circle of friends.

literature

• Boscawen, Edward . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 277 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Edward Boscawen  - Collection of Images