Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Superb Gold-hilted Presentation Small-Sword to Rear Admiral John Macbride, the hilt of enamelled gold, apparently unmarked, inscribed around the circumference of the shell on a translucent blue ground, ‘Presented to Rear Admiral John Macbride for his active and vigilant exertions in defence of the commerce of Great Britain, By the subscribers for encouraging the capture of French privateers. London 18 April 1793’. The grip of lacquered rosewood with gold and enamelled plaques attached, on one side the arms of the City of London, on the reverse side those of the owner, the other elements enamelled with classical motifs, naval trophies, seahorses, and naval engagements. Blued and gilt blade of triangular section inscribed ‘Vive Le Roy’, the later leather scabbard with enamelled gold mounts (the bottom mount gilt-metal), the locket signed ‘Cullum, sword cutler to His Majesty, Charing Cross’, 41 inches overall excluding scabbard, one enamel shield damaged on the locket, otherwise some very minor chips but generally in excellent condition £20000-25000

See colour illustration on back cover and Plate I.
Ex Carrington-Pierce sale, Sotheby, 4 April 1960 (illustrated) where the enamelling is described as ‘in the manner of J. Moser’. See also Three Presentation Swords, C. Blair, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1972, No. 6, where this sword is listed under known surviving work by James Morisset, probably the foremost enameller of the time.

Rear Admiral John Macbride, ‘a gentleman of a very respectable family in Ireland’, received his lieutenant’s commission in the Royal Navy on 27 October 1758. In August 1761 when in command of the armed cutter Grace in the Channel, he boldly cut out a privateer lying in the road of Dunkirk. From the captain of H.M.S. Maidstone he procured four boats manned and armed and at 10 o’clock one night stealthily approached the privateer which was confidently anchored under the guns of a fort on the east side of the harbour. Nearing the target Macbride’s seamen laid on their oars, except two in each boat, who with their blades muffled with baize, carried the raiders ever closer to the prize. When within musket shot, they were hailed, but making no answer were permitted to reach the privateer’s sides without further challenge. A few minutes later the privateer had been taken without the loss of a single British seaman, two only being wounded. The privateer’s lieutenant, however, was shot through the head and killed by Macbride when he tried to point a gun into one of the boats. With total enemy casualties amounting to two dead and five wounded, the prisoners were secured, the cables cut, and an escape effected out of the road.

In April 1762 Macbride was promoted to the fire-ship Grampus, and afterwards to the sloop Cruiser. In June 1765 he was appointed captain of the Renown (30) and in the following year to the Jason (32) which he took to the Falkland Islands. Returning in 1768, he successively commanded the Seaford, the frigates Southampton (32) and Orpheus (32), and, at the outbreak of the American War of Independence, the Bienfaisant (64). Following the declaration of war with France in 1778 he was present under Keppel in the action off Ushant, ‘but does not appear to have been materially engaged’. At the end of 1779 after Spain had joined France in the war against England, Macbride was proceeding with Admiral Rodney to Gibraltar to raise the siege there, when the fleet fell in with a Spanish squadron and convoy near Cape Finnisterre. Macbride promptly took the commanding ship, the Guipuscoana (64), and shortly afterwards distinguished himself by his ‘skill and valour’ in a sharp action with Don Juan de Langara, whose flagship, Pheonix (80), he contrived to secure in the midst of a violent storm.

In the spring of 1780 he was ordered to St George’s Channel on a seek and destroy mission, and early on 18 August fell in with the object of his pursuit, the privateer Count d’Artois (54), off Old Head of Kinsale. The French captain, a certain Chevalier de Clonnard, hoisted English colours in a bid to escape. But Macbride having no doubt that he had found his quarry ‘ordered the marines on his poop to fire’, whereupon the enemy ‘returned the compliment’ having first hoisted their proper colours. Bienfaisant fought to regulate her sails and gain a favourable position, while Clonnard attempted and failed to board. Finally, after an engagement of 70 minutes duration Clonnard surrendered with casualties of 21 killed and 35 wounded, against British equivalents of 3 and 20. In 1781 Macbride was employed watching the Dutch squadron in the Texel and was consequently present in the engagement off Dogger Bank under Parker. Succeeding to the command of the Princess Amelia (84), whose captain had been killed in action at Dogger Bank, he was employed cruising the Dutch coast and in December of the same year captured ‘two very large privateers’, the Hercules and the Mars. In April 1781 in the Artois (44), a former French vessel described as the finest of her class, he led Barrington’s interception of French warships and transports sailing from Brest to the East Indies. Quitting the Artois in July 1783, he was appointed to the Druid (33) and employed during 1784 as a cruiser in the Irish Channel prior to returning on shore and being chosen as Member of Parliament for Plymouth.

On the outbreak of war with the French republic in 1793 Macbride was made Rear Admiral of the Blue with an appointment in the Channel, but by an untimely riding accident compelled him to stay ashore. He nevertheless became Rear Admiral of the Red in April and with his flag in the Quebec (32) was appointed to the command of a squadron in the North Sea, composed of two frigates, a sloop, and a floating battery, which in October co-operated successfully with a detachment of the Army in driving the French out of Ostend and Nieuport and compelling them to fall back on Dunkirk.