Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, 4 Novr 1805, Seahorse Wh Badere Zaffere (Hon. Geo. P. Campbell, Midshipman.) ‘Hon.’ neatly engraved after issue, original ribbon, dark toned, edge bruise and lightly polished, otherwise good very fine £8000-10000

Provenance: Hawkes Collection 1994; Glendining’s, March 1996.

Approximately 32 clasps issued for ‘Seahorse Wh. Badere Zaffere’. George P. Campbell is confirmed as a Volunteer First Class aboard the Namur on 4 November 1805, and as Midshipman aboard the Seahorse in Captain Stewart’s Gold Medal action with Turkish frigates in July 1808.

George Pryse Campbell was born in 1793, the youngest son of the first Lord Cawdor, by Lady Caroline Howard, eldest daughter of Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle; brother of the present Earl Cawdor, who was so created 24 Sept. 1827; and nephew of the late Admiral Sir Geo. Campbell, G.C.B., who died 28 Jan. 1821.

He entered the Navy on 7 April 1803, as First Class Volunteer on board the Culloden 74, Captain Barrington Dacres, bearing the flag in the Channel of his uncle, Rear-Admiral George Campbell, with whom he went soon afterwards to the Mediterranean in the Canopus 80, and returned to England on board the Ambuscade 32, in January 1805. In April following he joined the Namur 74, Captain Lawrence Wm. Halsted, one of Sir Richard John Strachan’s squadron in his victorious conflict of 4 November 1805, with the four line-of-battle ships that had escaped from the battle of Trafalgar.

Mr. Campbell, who attained the rating of Midshipman on 19 December 1805, subsequently, in January 1807, became attached to the Seahorse, of 42 guns and 281 men, Captain John Stewart, stationed in the Mediterranean. Cruising in the Archipelago on the evening of 5 July 1808, the Seahorse fell in with two Turkish frigates, the Badere Zaffer, 52 guns, and the Alis-Fezan of 26 guns. The crew of the Badere Zaffer alone was nearly double that of the Seahorse, and her armament was heavier, but Captain Stewart engaged both ships, and after an action of about half an hour, the smaller Turkish frigate, much damaged, made sail away. Her consort fought in the most determined manner, and made several unsuccessful attempts to board the Seahorse, who poured broadside after broadside into her opponent with most destructive effect. For more than three hours the contest raged, from nine p.m. till past midnight, when the ships separated, the Turk with all her topmasts shot away, and her fire silenced. At dawn, the Seahorse bore down to renew the engagement, and the Turkish captain, though ready to fight again, was compelled by his crew to surrender, his ship being so shattered that she was with difficulty kept afloat. What occurred after the Badere Zaffer had struck her colours is best told in the words of an officer present:

‘The little Arab who commanded the Turkish ship, on being brought aboard and asked for his sword, had no idea of surrendering it; indeed he had, immediately after his colours were struck, dressed himself entirely in white, meant perhaps as a flag of truce. Having obtained permission to return to his ship, and being in the confusion of the moment unguarded, he got one of the fighting lanterns, which were still alight, and had reached the magazine passage then not secured, and over ankle deep in gunpowder, when just as he was in the act of taking the candle from the lantern the schoolmaster, who had come aboard the prize from curiosity, and happened to be providentially on the lower deck, immediately on seeing the danger knocked down the Arab, dowsed his glim, and saved us from the inevitable destruction of one, if not both, frigates. He was removed on board the Seahorse, and as he spoke Italian fluently, Captain Stewart rebuked him severely in that language for his breach of the laws of honour and war, to which he listened with unmoved patience. When the speaker ceased, the little tiger bent forward his head, and pointing to his neck, said, “Take it, it is yours, don’t hesitate, for had the fortune of war been mine I would have had your head off two hours ago. I only did my duty in attempting to blow up my ship, and I curse my own stupidity for not succeeding.” His officers declared that during the action he had put 17 of his own men to death with his own hand in attempting to keep them at their quarters.’

The British loss was five men killed and ten wounded; the loss of the enemy, one hundred and seventy killed and about two hundred wounded, many mortally, showing the difference in the handling and gunnery of the two ships. Captain Stewart took his shattered prize into Malta, and being unsuitable for the British Navy, she was sold to some merchants. In addition to the Naval Gold Medal, Captain Stewart received a £100 sword from the Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund for this service.

From April 1809, to March 1810, Mr. Campbell was next employed in the Agincourt 64, and Princess of Orange 74, flag-ships in the Downs of Vice- Admiral G. Campbell, and, on 3 September following, he became Acting Flag-Lieutenant to Sir Richard Goodwin Keats in the Milford 74, off Cadiz. He received his first Admiralty commission on 15 March, 1811; and, as a Lieutenant, was subsequently appointed – 27 June 1811, to the Tartarus 20, Captain John Pasco, on the North American station; and on 19 December 1811, to the Belvidera 36, Captain Richard Byron, whose official praise he elicited for his able direction of that frigate’s main-deck stern-chasers on the occasion of her celebrated escape from a powerful American squadron under Commodore Rodgers, after a long running fight.

On the outbreak of war with Britain on 18 June 1812, Commodore Rodgers had put to sea three days later with a powerful squadron comprising the two 44-gun frigates President and United States, the 38-gun Congress and the sloops Hornet and Argus. Two days out on 23 June, some 100 miles south-west of the Nantucket Shoals, he encountered the British 36-gun frigate Belvidera. Byron had been informed of the likelihood of war by a New York pilot boat, and as soon as he made out the strange ships he stood away before the wind. The Americans made all sail in chase, the President, a very fast ship off the wind, leading, and the Congress coming next.

At noon the President was within less than three miles of the Belvidera, steering north-east by east. As the President kept gaining, Byron cleared for action, and shifted to the stern ports two long 18's on the main-deck and two 32-pound carronades on the quarter-deck. At 4.30 Commodore Rodgers himself fired the President's starboard forecastle bow-chaser; the corresponding main-deck gun was next discharged; and then Rodgers fired his gun again. All three shots struck the stern of the Belvidera, killing and wounding nine men; but when the President's main-deck gun was discharged for the second time it burst, blowing up the forecastle deck and killing and wounding sixteen men, among them the Commodore himself, whose leg was broken. Nothing causes more panic than such an explosion, for every gun is at once distrusted; and in the midst of the confusion Byron opened his stern-chaser, and killed or wounded six men more. Had the President pushed steadily on, using only her bow-chasers until she closed, she would probably have run abreast of the Belvidera, which could not then have successfully withstood her; but, instead of doing this, she bore up and fired her port broadside, doing little damage; and this manoeuvre she repeated again and again; while the Belvidera kept up a brisk and galling fire with her stern-chasers, and her active seamen repaired the damage done by the President's guns as fast as it occurred. Byron cut away his anchors, the barge, yawl, gig, and jolly-boat, and started fourteen tons of water, gradually shifting his course, and beginning to draw ahead, and the President, which had lost much ground by yawing to deliver her broadsides, could not regain it. The upshot of it was that Captain Byron escaped and got safely into Halifax on June 27th, having shown himself to be a skilful seaman and resolute commander.

From 23 June 1812 to 4 November 1813, Campbell was Flag-Lieutenant, in the Monmouth 64, to Vice-Admiral Thomas Foley, Commander-in-Chief in the Downs. On 19 April 1814, he was appointed to the Royal Sovereign yacht, Captain Sir John Poo Beresford, in which he conveyed Louis XVIII to Calais. Having attained the rank of Commander on 16 May 1814, he was next, 5 May 1818, appointed to the Racehorse 18, on the Mediterranean station. He acquired a Post-commission on 27 January 1821. He afterwards sat in Parliament for the counties of Cromartie and Nairn, N.B.; and was appointed, 24 February 1831, Groom of the Bed Chamber to King William IV, in which capacity he officiated at His Majesty’s funeral, 8 July 1837. He married, 13 October 1821, Charlotte, second daughter of General Isaac Gascoyne, M.P.; and accepted the Retirement on 1 October 1846. He was advanced to Rear-Admiral on the Retired List on 8 March 1852. Rear-Admiral the Honourable George Pryse Campbell died at South Audley Street, London, on 12 January 1858, in his 65th year.