a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer, he was deployed with a squadron under Admiral Edward Vernon to the West Indies at the start of the War of Jenkins' Ear. He saw action again at the Battle of Toulon during the War of the Austrian Succession. As captain of the fourth-rate HMS Bristol he took part in the Invasion of Guadeloupe during the Seven Years' War. As a commodore, he was deployed to the North American Station, to provide naval support for an expedition led by General Sir Henry Clinton reinforcing loyalists in the Southern Colonies at an early stage of the American Revolutionary War.
