Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The unique N.G.S. medal awarded to Rear-Admiral John Harper, C.B., Royal Navy, who was promoted for his ‘Boat Service’ action in 1809, and made a Knight of the Order of Leopold by the Emperor of Austria for his distinguished conduct at the successful sieges of Cattaro and Ragusa in January 1814

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Nile, 29 July Boat Service 1809 (John Harper, Lieut.) original ribbon; together with Cattaro siege coin, cast 5 Francs, 1813, 40mm diameter (Mailliet pl. XXV, 3; Dav. 46; KM. 2) this good very fine and very rare, the first with a light scratch across Queen’s cheek, otherwise extremely fine (2) £24,000-£28,000

Both pieces acquired privately by the present vendor some years ago from a direct descendant of Rear-Admiral Harper.

11 clasps issued for the Boat Service action of 29 July 1809, examples being held by the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Naval Museum, the Royal Marines Museum, and in the Patiala Collection (Sheesh Mahal Museum, India). Lieutenant Harper was the only officer promoted for this Boat Service action, thus solely responsible for the naming and institution of this commemorative clasp. Its combination with the clasp for the Nile is unique.

John Harper was born on 18 September 1772, at Chatham, Kent, the son of a lieutenant in the navy. His younger brother died whilst serving as a lieutenant of the Lutine 32, Captain Lancelot Skynner, which sunk off the Netherlands on 9 October 1799. Harper entered the navy in March 1781 as a captain's servant aboard the Bellona 74, Captain Richard Onslow, removing to the Britannia 100, Captain Benjamin Hill, which flew the flag of Vice-Admiral Hon. Samuel Barrington in the Channel during 1782, and in which ship his father was a lieutenant. He was present at the Relief of Gibraltar on 18 October, but two days later his father was killed in the action with the Spanish fleet off Cape Spartel, following which Harper was taken under the Admiral's protection.

Enjoying Barrington's patronage, Harper was employed during the peace at Portsmouth, seeing service aboard the Edgar 74, Captain Adam Duncan, and the Triumph 74 and Barfleur l4, both commanded by Captain John Knight and flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. He subsequently joined the Pomona 28, Captain Henry Savage, seeing service on the African station and in the Channel from the summer of 1789 through the Spanish Armament of 1790 until the end of the Russian Armament in October 1791.

Further peacetime service was aboard the Duke 98, Captain Robert Calder, flying the flag at Portsmouth of the commander-in-chief, Vice Admiral Robert Roddam, the cutter Sprightly 10, and the Portsmouth guardship Edgar 74, Captain Albemarle Bertie. At the commencement of the French Revolutionary War in 1793 Admiral Barrington secured Harper a berth aboard the Boyne 98, Captain Hon. George Grey, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis, whose expeditionary force went out to the Leeward Islands in late 1793. During the campaign of 1794 Harper commanded a flat-bottomed boat at the capture of Martinique, and he was rewarded by being commissioned Lieutenant on 21 February.

Joining the sloop Avenger 16, Captains Edward Griffith and Charles Ogle, he earned acclaim after taking a six-oared guard boat into the Carenage under cover of a rain shower during the siege of St. Lucia, and bringing out a fully manned French 10-gun schooner whose crew had been sheltering below decks, and who suffered for their naivety by having the hatches battened down on them by the boarding party. He later saw service ashore at the reduction of Guadeloupe before the Avenger returned home to be paid off at Portsmouth in October 1794.

Harper next joined the Defence 74, Captain Thomas Wells, in which he went out to the Mediterranean and fought at the battle of Hyères Islands on 13 July 1795. Continuing with the Defence in the Mediterranean, he was active in the various boat actions off Cadiz during the summer of 1797, and saw further employment under Captain William Brown before serving as Second Lieutenant to Captain John Peyton at the battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798. Previous to that ever memorable conflict, he had the misfortune to suffer a serious fever which affected his ship whilst it was watering at Syracuse, one from which many of the Defence's crew died, and one that it was believed he too might not survive.

During 1799 the Defence was commanded by Captain Lord Henry Paulet, being employed off Lisbon and Cadiz, and in the Mediterranean following the breakout of the Brest fleet on 25 April. In December 1799 Harper re-joined Captain Thomas Wells aboard the Glory 98 in the Channel fleet, on which vessel he remained until she was paid off at Chatham on the peace in April 1802.

With the resumption of hostilities in the spring of 1803, Harper became Flag-Lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Bartholomew Rowley at the Nore, but within a few weeks he was given command of the hired cutter Admiral Mitchell, undertaking a secret mission at the behest of Captain John Wright, who was an expert in clandestine operations, and seeing action against the Boulogne invasion flotilla, for which he received the commendation of Rear-Admiral Robert Montagu for his gallant conduct. He was later employed in command of the hired cutter Duke of Clarence in the Channel Islands.

On 27 October 1804 Harper was appointed to the Wasp 18, Commander Hon. Frederick Aylmer, seeing service in the Mediterranean, and from March 1805 off the coast of Portugal under Commander John Simpson, which officer he followed to the Star 16 in October 1805 after the Wasp had brilliantly managed to evade the pursuit of the Rochefort squadron two months earlier. Commanding two score men in the Star’s boats, Harper cut out a Spanish privateer lugger in January 1806.

In January 1807 he joined the Excellent 14, Captain John West, which ship went out to the Mediterranean in June after fitting out at the Nore, and whose crew garrisoned Fort Rosas until relieved by the Fame 74, Captain Richard Bennett, and by Captain Lord Cochrane during the Catalonian campaign of June-November 1808.

Boat Service

On 29 July 1809, Captain West reported to the senior officer in the Adriatic, the capture of 6 heavy gun-boats belonging to the Italian marine, and 10 trabaccolas, or coasters, laden with brandy, flour, rice, and wheat; lying under the guns of a castle, and protected by a pier lined with musketry. Here follows an extract of his public letter:-

“An enemy’s convoy was observed yesterday morning standing along the northern shore towards Trieste; and being of opinion, that by anchoring the Excellent as near that shore as her safety would admit, might enable me to cut off the enemy from his destined port, I immediately weighed and took up a position accordingly. This movement had the desired affect, obliging the enemy to take shelter in Douin, a port 4 leagues to the N.W. of Trieste. In the afternoon a coaster was brought on board by the Excellent’s boat, which informed me the enemy’s convoy was composed of 6 gun-boats, and several vessels laden with grain.

“Conceiving it very practicable to capture or destroy them in their present situation, at 10 p.m. I detached H.M. sloops Acorn and Bustard, with all the boats of the Excellent, under the direction of Mr. John Harper, the first lieutenant, to perform this service. At midnight a very heavy cannonade was seen in that direction, which in a short hour ceased, when I had the satisfaction of seeing a rocket go up, which announced to me a favourable issue to the enterprise. At noon this day, H.M. sloops and boats returned, having with them the whole of the enemy’s convoy.

“Of the merits of Lieutenant Harper, an officer of fifteen years standing, I cannot speak in terms of sufficient praise; his conduct on this, as on many former occasions, was that of a most experienced and enterprising officer.”

Three of the gun-boats were armed with long 24-pounders, the remainder with long eighteens. They were commanded by officers lately sent from Boulogne, and each had a crew consisting of 15 sailors, 2 artillery men, and 3 riflemen. Five out of the six commandants were killed, wounded, or drowned; their total loss amounted to more than 50.

Receiving a letter of approbation from the Admiralty and warm praise from the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, he was most unfortunate not to immediately obtain a promotion in respect of this exploit. “This enterprise” said Lord Collingwood, “was well devised and gallantly executed. The manner in which Captain Clephane speaks of the conduct and skill of Lieutenant Harper, is only a repetition of whatever he has been entitled to when he goes upon service.”

During September he took two boats to disperse a body of French troops protecting a large armed schooner which had grounded under a heavy battery near Brindisi, and which he then set on fire. In November 1809 Captain Edward Griffith assumed the command of the Excellent, whereupon she returned to serve in the Channel.

Promotion and return to the Adriatic

On 17 April 1810, Harper was at long last deservedly promoted to the rank of Commander, but it was not until 19 August 1812 that he received a commission, being appointed to the shallow-drafted sloop Saracen 16. Just four weeks later, and with only a scratch and most incomplete crew, he captured the Calais privateer lugger Courier 14 and drove off her consort near Beachy Head.

Going out to the Adriatic thereafter, Harper escorted a convoy from Malta to Smyrna, and at his own request was transferred from that station to the Adriatic to serve under the overall command of Rear-Admiral Thomas Fremantle. On 17 June 1813, he led the Saracen's boats containing forty men in the storming of the Dalmatian island of Zupano, which success was achieved after a three mile march, and in the face of a garrison of fifty-two men, thirty-six of whom were made prisoner. This action also facilitated the capture of the nearby island of Mezzo after a siege of several days, in which he was joined by the Weazle 16, Commander Andrew James Black. Thereafter Harper led the blockade of Ragusa, which is the modern-day Dubrovnik, and the Boco di Cattaro, which is the modern-day Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, whilst his own command and several tenders kept the hostile coast in constant alarm.

In September Harper even had the temerity to take a party of two dozen men ashore and round up some fifty oxen, which he transported offshore in fishing boats. In October he subordinated his vessel to Captain William Hoste of the Bacchante 38, and sailed for Castelnuovo to assist the local population who were in rebellion against the French. The two ships forced their way to a favourable anchorage three miles from the town on the evening of the 12th, and that night Harper commanded the boats and two Sicilian gunboats which, under fire from a French battery on the nearby island of San Giorgio, took possession of four enemy gun-boats that were themselves in a state of revolt. After landing to find an enthusiastic populace willing to take up arms against their occupiers, Harper was then able to attack and force the surrender of the French garrison of one hundred and forty men on San Giorgio.

Remaining in the Boco di Cattaro, Harper was ordered to blockade the only remaining fort in French hands, to which six hundred men had retreated. As this was about fifteen miles upriver, and both the wind and current were against him, he employed the locals to haul him along by heaving on a hawser which was attached to the Saracen's fore-masthead. By the 20th the Saracen was able to anchor within reach of Cattaro, from where Harper immediately proposed to haul a gun up to the heights above the town. Despite the local French general's mocking assertion that it would take six months to erect such a battery, the Saracen's men began the task on 29 November and had it completed before Christmas. Upon the return of Hoste's Bacchante a siege was opened, and following ten days battering the French realised the hopelessness of their position and agreed the surrender of Cattaro on 5 January 1814. Three weeks later, on 28 January, Ragusa surrendered after the two ships had acted in concert with British and Austrian troops.

Captain Harper was subsequently present at the blockade of Venice under the orders of Rear-Admiral John Gore, and following its surrender he took the Saracen up through the canals for some twelve miles to anchor near St. Mark's Palace. To honour his Adriatic achievements he was later rewarded by the Emperor of Austria with the insignia of a Knight of the Order of Leopold as a reward for his distinguished conduct at Cattaro and Ragusa.

On 7 June 1814 Harper was posted captain, and after service in North America he returned to England on 26 October 1814. Just over two weeks later he took command of the new Tyne 20, at Portsmouth, in which vessel he sailed with despatches for the East Indies that month. At Bombay on 19 June 1815, he took command of the new Wellesley 74, which had been constructed at that port, but shortly afterwards he removed to the Doris 36, which he brought home with despatches to be paid off in the Thames in March 1816. In the meantime he had been nominated a C.B. on 4 June 1815.

Continuing in immediate employment, Harper joined the Wye 20, which he sailed for Quebec at the end of June giving passage to Lieutenant-General David Latimer Tinling-Widdrington and his suite. He remained at Halifax for the best part of the next three years, and upon his return he went on half pay in December 1818, after thirty-six years almost continuous service.

Retiring to Dorking, Surrey, Harper did not see any further service but on 1 October 1846 was placed on the retired list as a Rear Admiral, although with no increase in pay. He died on 2 July 1855 at his residence near Guildford, Surrey.

Harper was married firstly in 1805, and on the second occasion on 30 October 1834, at Ockley, Surrey, to a widow, Susannah Maria Young of that county. He had at least two sons and two daughters from his first marriage. His eldest son, John Horatio Harper, died on board the Arab 16, which was lost with all hands off County Mayo, Ireland, on 18 December 1823. His only surviving son, Theodore Hoste Harper, a civil engineer, died of cholera at Calcutta in 1862.