Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/206

H month was appointed to the Theseus, bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Dacres, on the West Indian station. He afterwards commanded, on the same station, the Tartar and the Melampus till 1812, being continually engaged in active and successful cruising against the enemy's privateers. From 1813 to 1815, first in the Bellerophon and afterwards in the Salisbury, he was flag-captain to Sir Richard Goodwin Keats, commander-in-chief at Newfoundland, and from 1827 to 1830 was flag-captain to the Earl of Northesk at Plymouth. He had no further service afloat, but became in due course rear-admiral in 1837, vice-admiral in 1847, admiral in 1853, and died at Brighton 8 June 1860.

During his later years he was a frequent correspondent of the ‘Times,’ writing on naval subjects under the signature of ‘A Flag Officer.’ A letter to Wellington in 1840 was published separately. He was also well known in religious and philanthropic circles. He was married and left issue. 

HAWKER, JAMES (d. 1787), captain in the navy, entered the service in 1744 on board the Shrewsbury with Captain Gideon. He was afterwards with Captain Rodney in the Sheerness, with Lucius O'Bryen in the Colchester, and Molyneux Shuldham. His passing certificate is dated 4 June 1755. On 31 Dec. 1755 he was appointed lieutenant of the Colchester, which in 1759 was attached to the fleet off Brest under Hawke. On 6 Aug. 1761 he was promoted to the command of the Barbadoes, and in April 1763 was appointed to the Sardoine. He was posted on 26 May 1768, and in March 1770 commissioned the Aldborough. In July 1779 he commanded the Iris, a 32-gun frigate, on the coast of North America, and in her, on 6 June 1780, fought a well-conducted and equal action with the French 36-gun frigate Hermione, commanded by M. La Touche Tréville, who died in 1804, vice-admiral in command of the Toulon fleet. After a severe combat the two ships separated, both disabled; the Iris returned to New York, and the Hermione made the best of her way to Boston. La Touche was greatly mortified, as his frigate was by far the more powerful, and he had previously boasted that he would clear the coast of British cruisers. Some angry correspondence ensued, with the object apparently of determining which of the two ran away from the other. This was published in the ‘New York Gazette’ (, v. 47), and created a very unfavourable impression of La Touche's conduct, to which Nelson angrily referred during the time of his Toulon command (Nelson Despatches, vi. 165). It is said that during the action a chain-shot did a good deal of damage to the Hermione, on which La Touche remarked, ‘Voilà une liaison bien dangereuse!’—it is, however, very doubtful if the Iris fired any chain-shot. On 1 Aug. Hawker was moved into the Renown, which he took to England, and on 10 Nov. was appointed to the Hero, one of the squadron with Commodore George Johnstone [q. v.] in Porto Praya on 16 April 1781. He quitted the Hero shortly afterwards, and had no further service, dying in 1787. He left a family of three sons and five daughters, three of whom married naval officers, Admiral Charles Boyles, Admiral E. Oliver Osborne, and Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, bart.; another daughter married Sir William Knighton, private secretary and keeper of the privy purse to George IV. Of the sons two entered the army; the third, Edward [q. v.], died, an admiral, in 1860. 

HAWKER, PETER (1786–1853), soldier and sporting writer, born 24 Dec. 1786, was son of Colonel Peter Ryves Hawker (d. 1790) of Longparish, Hampshire, by Mary Wilson Yonge, who was of an Irish family. Like his father and many of his ancestors Hawker entered the army, his commission as cornet in the 1st royal dragoons dating from 1801. In 1803 he joined the 14th light dragoons, in which regiment he became captain the year following, and served with it in the Peninsular war. Being badly wounded at Talavera, he retired from active service in 1813, but by the recommendation of the Duke of Clarence he was made major (1815), and then lieutenant-colonel (1821) of the North Hampshire Militia. Hawker, a man of very varied ability, was a good musician as well as a keen sportsman. He composed much music, and in 1820 patented an improvement in the construction of the pianoforte. At the Exhibition of 1851 some alterations in firearms which Hawker devised attracted attention, and he hoped in vain that they would be adopted by the war office. He died on 7 Aug. 1853. An engraving of a bust of Hawker is in his ‘Instructions to Young Sportsmen’ (11th ed.)

He was twice married, and by his first wife, Julia, daughter of Hooker Bartellot, whom he married in 1811, he had a son, Peter William Lanoe Hawker, sometime a