Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Royalist 29 Decr 1812 (Henry Hackman.) a very minor edge bruise, otherwise good very fine and extremely rare £22,000-£26,000

Fergus Gowans Collection (1947-71); Christie’s, April 1984.

Royalist 29 Decr 1812 [3 clasps issued] - Alexander Brown, coxswain, also with Syria clasp, medal named as gunner (Dix Noonan Webb, February 2016, £38,000); Henry Hackman, able seaman; Lewis Rees, midshipman.

Henry Hackman is confirmed on the roll as an able seaman for the capture of La Ruse by the Royalist on 29 December 1812.

At 11 p.m. on the night of 29 December 1812, the eighteen-gun brig Royalist, Commander George Downie, cruising in the Channel off Hythe, fell in with, and after a short action captured, the French privateer lugger La Ruse, sixteen guns, with a crew of sixty-five men. The prize had her main mast shot away, and one of her crew killed, and another wounded, before she struck her colours. She was a new vessel on her first cruise and had made no captures. Commander Downie, who was promoted for this action, was killed when in command of a British squadron on Lake Champlain during the battle of Plattsburg in September 1814.