Admiral Sir Thomas Pakenham GCB (29 September 1757 – 2 February 1836) was a Royal Navy officer and politician.
Biography
Pakenham was born the fourth son of Thomas Pakenham, 1st Baron Longford and his wife Elizabeth, Baroness Longford (she was later created, in June 1785, The 1st Countess of Longford).
He entered the Royal Navy in 1771 on board the Southampton, with Captain John MacBride, with whom he moved to the Orpheus in 1773. In 1774 he was on the coast of Guinea with William Cornwallis in the Pallas, and in 1775 was acting lieutenant of the Sphinx on the coast of North America.
In the following year he was promoted by Lord Shuldham to be lieutenant of the frigate Greyhound, and while in her saw much boat service, in the course of which he was severely wounded. In 1778 he joined the Courageux, commanded by Lord Mulgrave, in the fleet under Keppel, and was present in the Battle of Ushant on 27 July.
In the following spring he was moved into Europe, going to North America with the flag of Rear-Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot, and on 21 September 1779 was promoted to the command of the sloop Victor, newly captured from the enemy. He was then sent to the Jamaica station, where, on 2 March 1780, he was posted by Sir Peter Parker the elder to the San Carlos. His old wound, received while in the Greyhound, broke out again, and compelled him to return to England in the autumn.
In December 1780 he was appointed to the Crescent of 28 guns, attached to the fleet under George Darby, which relieved Gibraltar in April 1781, and was sent on to Menorca in company with the Flora under William Peere Williams-Freeman. On their way back, in passing through the straits, they fell in, on 30 May, with two Dutch frigates. In the ensuing Battle of Cape St Mary, one of the Dutch frigates, the Castor (commanded by Pieter Melvill van Carnbee), struck the Flora, while the other, the Den Briel, overpowered and captured the Crescent. The Crescent was immediately recaptured by the Flora, the Den Briel making her escape; but both Crescent and Castor had received so much damage in the action that they fell into the hands of two French frigates on the way home, 19 June, the Flora escaping. Pakenham had, however, refused to resume the command of the Crescent, maintaining that by his surrender to the Den Briel his commission was cancelled, and that when recaptured the ship was on the same footing as any other prize.