Rear-Admiral Samuel Jackson (1775–16 January 1845) was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jackson joined the Royal Navy in 1790 and served before the French Revolutionary War in the cutter HMS Kite. He transferred in 1793 to the frigate HMS Romulus, in which he participated in the Siege of Toulon. After having served for a while in the Mediterranean Jackson transferred with the captain of Romulus, John Sutton, to the ship of the line HMS Egmont. In her Jackson fought in 1795 at the battles of Genoa and the Hyères Islands. In 1796, having been promoted to lieutenant and still in Egmont, Jackson was integral in the saving of the entire crew of the ship of the line HMS Bombay Castle off the Tagus during a large storm. In the following year he fought at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent and with Horatio Nelson at the Assault on Cádiz.

In 1798 Jackson moved with Sutton to the ship of the line HMS Superb, where he became her first lieutenant. He remained in this position when Richard Goodwin Keats took command and they were deployed on the Cádiz blockade. Superb distinguished herself at the Second Battle of Algeciras in 1801. Jackson was given command of one of the prizes from the battle, the ship of the line San Antoine. Despite being vastly outnumbered by the captives on board, Jackson distinguished himself by successfully subduing an attempted take over and bringing the ship safely to Gibraltar. For his services in San Antoine and the battle he was promoted to commander. In 1803 he was given command of the sloop HMS Autumn in which he spent the majority of his time fighting the forces of the Boulogne Flotilla. He fought a number of engagements against the ships and fortifications of Calais and Boulogne in this period, and also in 1805 saved a large troop convoy under his control from destruction off the Texel. In 1807 Jackson, now commanding the brig HMS Musquito, was part of a squadron blockading Zealand in the Copenhagen Expedition.

Jackson was promoted to post captain after this and given command of his old ship Superb at the end of the year. He served for a while in the English Channel and Mediterranean before going to the Baltic Sea where, again under the command of Richard Goodwin Keats,he participated in the evacuation of La Romana's division in 1808. After being frozen in at Gothenburg through the winter, Jackson then joined the Walcheren Expedition in 1809. Superb was decommissioned after this and Jackson stayed unemployed until 1812 when he was made temporary captain of the ship of the line HMS Poictiers, in which he served in the English Channel and North Sea Fleet. After this he was given command of the frigate HMS Lacedaemonian, sailing to the North America Station to fight in the War of 1812 in 1813. Here he commanded a blockading squadron, taking and destroying £500,000 worth of goods in the last year of the war. After returning home in 1815 Jackson was given command of another frigate, HMS Niger, and sent back to North America where he became senior naval officer on the coast of Nova Scotia. In 1817 Niger was in such a poor state that Jackson was forced to leave her and return home in a transport ship.

Jackson was not given another command until 1822 when he was appointed to the Ordinary at Sheerness Dockyard, where he stayed for three years. He then commanded the ship of the line HMS Bellerophon in the Mediterranean between 1836 and 1838, and upon returning home became captain of the royal yacht HMS Royal Sovereign and captain-superintendent of Pembroke Dockyard. He held both these commands until he was promoted to rear-admiral in 1841. He did not serve again after achieving flag rank, and died in 1845.

Naval career Junior officer Initial service Samuel Jackson was born at Bognor in Sussex, in 1775. He joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman on board the cutter HMS Kite on 4 July 1790. In Kite he served primarily on the Irish Station through the years of peace preceding the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, fighting smugglers. Kite was broken up in December 1793, but before this Jackson had transferred to the frigate HMS Romulus, commanded by Captain John Sutton. In Romulus Jackson was promoted to master's mate, and he was already serving in her when she sailed to Gibraltar on 22 April. The journey was fraught with illness and over 100 members of the crew had to be sent to Gibraltar's hospital upon their reaching that port. Despite this Romulus was immediately sent to join the initial naval force capturing the city of Toulon. Jackson stayed in Romulus throughout this period, and was still with her when she was sent to Leghorn afterwards.

Mediterranean Fleet

From here Romulus joined with the frigate HMS Meleager to hunt down a group of privateers loyal to the French cause and known to operate off Capraja. The two frigates discovered the enemy force holed up in a location inaccessible to the two large vessels, and so the small boats of the ships were launched to attack them. The command of one of the boats involved in the attack was given to Jackson. The French had left their ships to hide behind rocky outcrops on the coast, and the British boats sailed in under heavy musket fire before successfully attacking and capturing the force and their ships. Four ships were captured in this attack, and in a similarly successful attack soon after Jackson was again the commander of one of the boats involved.

Romulus and Jackson stayed in the Mediterranean Sea after these actions, participating in a prolonged attack on the forts of Bastia with the ship of the line HMS Agamemnon. Sutton was then transferred to the command of the ship of the line HMS Egmont in May 1794, and he brought Jackson with him. Egmont was part of the main force of Vice-Admiral William Hotham's Mediterranean Fleet; as such she fought in the Battle of Genoa on 14 March 1795, against the French fleet from Toulon, in which battle he was slightly wounded. The day after this Egmont was preparing to move on and Jackson was tasked with gathering in some of the ship's cables in a small boat trailing behind the ship. While he was doing this Egmont suddenly backed her sails, slowing considerably, to get nearer to a prize. In doing so the large ship completely destroyed Jackson's boat, sinking it instantly, but Jackson and his crew were "providentially" saved from death by Egmont.

Egmont stayed with the fleet after this, fighting in the Battle of the Hyères Islands on 13 July where the French ship of the line Alcide was destroyed. Jackson continued in Egmont after this when she joined the force of Vice-Admiral William Waldegrave to participate in negotiations in Tunisia in spring 1796. On 9 March, Jackson participated in a boat action wherein the force captured the French warships Nemesis and Sardine, as well as a polacre, and destroyed a cutter.

Bombay Castle rescue

Soon after this Jackson left the service of Sutton and joined the ship of the line HMS Victory, the flagship of the new commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir John Jervis. Jervis promoted Jackson to lieutenant on 3 November, and he was transferred in that rank to serve in the store ship HMS Alliance. He served only briefly in this vessel, re-joining Sutton in Egmont as her most junior lieutenant at the end of the year. The fleet then sailed to Lisbon. On 23 December the fleet was entering the Tagus when one of the ships, the ship of the line HMS Bombay Castle, was grounded on a sandbank after being swept away by a current while avoiding a collision with the store ship HMS Camel. An effort to free Bombay Castle was immediately launched and Jackson was given command of Egmonts boats for the operation.

After two days of attempting to free the ship a strong gale began which convinced the crews that it was now impossible to save the ship. Jackson then volunteered to and successfully traversed the increasingly bad sea conditions to bring a letter to Jervis explaining the perilous position of Bombay Castles crew. Jervis gave Jackson the responsibility of navigating all the remaining boats of the fleet back to the stranded ship to remove her crew to safety. This being done, all of the crew bar her officers were transported to the ship of the line HMS Zealous. The ship's officers had refused to leave until the rest of the crew did, but while this operation was taking place the sands around Bombay Castle moved and made it impossible for Jackson's boats to go alongside to take them off. Despite the increasingly stormy condition of the seas Jackson took the boat he was in, Egmonts launch, through the waves to the jibboom of the ship, from where the officers were able to lower themselves into his boat and were saved. In the subsequent court martial held for the loss of Bombay Castle Jackson was praised by the president of the court, Captain Thomas Foley, for his "intrepidity and humanity" in saving the entire crew.

Cádiz blockade

Despite this Jackson was not further rewarded for his actions and stayed in Egmont with the Mediterranean Fleet. As such on 13 February 1797 he fought in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent and was slightly wounded during the fighting, although Egmont had no outright casualties recorded in the engagement. By 3 July Egmont was part of a force bombarding Cádiz with the bomb vessel HMS Thunder. In firing so much Thunder damaged the barrel of her mortar and began to retire towards the main fleet of Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson. The Spanish inside Cádiz sent out a large force of small ships to cut off Thunder in an attempt to capture her. Again Jackson took charge of one of Egmonts boats, this time as part of the rescue effort led by Nelson himself. As Nelson attacked the Spanish commander's vessel from one side, Jackson boarded it from the other, and the action was successful in saving Thunder and also capturing three of the Spanish vessels.

Jackson continued in his role as a lieutenant in Egmont until that ship was paid off in early 1798. He was then appointed to the brand new ship of the line HMS Superb with Sutton as her captain and Jackson as the first lieutenant, serving in the Channel Fleet, in May. In June 1799 Superb was sent as part of a detached squadron to join the force of Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Cotton in chasing the escaped fleet of Étienne Eustache Bruix from Brest to the Mediterranean. This chase having concluded when Bruix reached Cádiz, Egmont returned to the Channel. In 1801 Sutton was replaced in command of Superb with Captain Richard Goodwin Keats, but for a period after this he was absent and Jackson was given temporary command of the ship. Superb then served as a convoy escort before joining the Cádiz blockade in around June 1801.

Second Battle of Algeciras

Keats having returned to command Superb, they were watching the entrance to the River Guadilquivir, somewhat detached from the main British force, under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez which went in search of a French squadron thought to be exiting the Mediterranean. The Superb remained off Cádiz. Saumarez found the French anchored in the bay of Algeciras and launched an attack as soon as he arrived in the bay. A failing breeze and extensive shoals cruelled his chances of success and the severely battered fleet retreated to Gibraltar to repair.