D'Arcy Preston

Admiral D'Arcy Preston (1765 – 21 January 1847, Askham Bryan, York) was a British naval officer of the 18th and 19th centuries. He served throughout the French Revolutionary War, most notably commanding HMS Blanche at the action of 19 December 1796. He became a rear-admiral in 1819 and died in 1847 as an admiral of the white. Early life D'Arcy Preston was born in 1765, the son of the Reverend John Preston and his wife Jane Consitt. Naval career Preston entered the Royal Navy on 10 May 1781 as a volunteer on board HMS Portland on the Newfoundland Station. Between September 1782 and November 1790 Preston served widely, on the North American, Mediterranean, Home, and again the Newfoundland Station. In doing so he saw service on HMS Thorn, HMS Portland, HMS Bulldog, HMS Sphinx, HMS Phaeton, HMS Bedford, and HMS Salisbury, the latter of which while it was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Mark Milbanke. Preston was promoted to lieutenant on 4 November 1790, and served successively on HMS Orestes, HMS Royal Sovereign, and HMS Boyne. It was while he was a lieutenant on Boyne that Preston took part in the first notable action of his career. Boyne was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis, and took part in his campaign to capture French colonies in the West Indies; in March 1794 Preston commanded Boyne'''s landing party at the capture of Fort Royal, Martinique. On 4 April, while participating in the invasion of Saint Lucia, Preston was promoted to commander and appointed to the command of the sloop HMS Rattlesnake. In Rattlesnake he took the officers carrying Jervis' reports of his campaign home to England. After this Preston went on half-pay for around two years. Preston's next command came on 17 May 1796 when he was appointed to the brand new sloop [[HMS Termagant (1796)|HMS Termagant]] to serve in the North Sea. This was a short command as Preston was promoted to post-captain on 13 June. While Preston was promoted into HMS Queen at first, this was purely to ensure he held post-captain rank and he did not serve in her. The next true command of Preston was the obsolete 8-pounder frigate HMS Mignonne, followed by HMS Blanche from June. Preston moved from Mignonne to Blanche on the orders of Admiral Jervis after Blanches previous captain, Charles Sawyer, was court martialled and removed from his command.