Vice Admiral

Vice Admiral (Royal Navy)

Vice admiral is a flag officer rank of the British Royal Navy. It equates to the NATO rank code OF-8 and is immediately superior to rear admiral and is subordinate to the full admiral rank.The Royal Navy has had vice admirals since at least the 16th century...

 Sir Henry Hotham KCB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 (19 February 1777 – 19 April 1833) was a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 hero who saw a great deal of service during the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

.

Naval career

Born the third son of Beaumont Hotham, 2nd Baron Hotham, Henry Hotham chose to join the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

.

On 4 November 1805, Hotham was captain of at the Battle of Cape Ortegal

Battle of Cape Ortegal

The Battle of Cape Ortegal was the final action of the Trafalgar Campaign, and was fought between a squadron of the Royal Navy and a remnant of the fleet that had been destroyed several weeks earlier at the Battle of Trafalgar...

. She and captured Scipion, which the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 commissioned as HMS Scipion. In the battle, Revolutionnaire lost two men killed and six wounded.

In 1812 he was the commander of a Royal Navy squadron blockading France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Following the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

, in July 1815, Napoleon surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland

Frederick Lewis Maitland (Rear Admiral)

Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland, KCB was an officer in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He rose to the rank of rear admiral and held a number of commands...

 of HMS Bellerophon

HMS Bellerophon (1786)

The first HMS Bellerophon of the Royal Navy was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line launched on 6 October 1786 at Frindsbury on the River Medway, near Chatham. She was built at the shipyard of Edward Greaves to the specifications of the Arrogant, designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1758, the lead ship...

 off Rochefort

Rochefort, Charente-Maritime

Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...

. Hotham's ship, HMS Superb

HMS Superb (1798)

HMS Superb was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, and the fourth vessel to bear the name. She was launched on 19 March 1798 from Northfleet, and was eventually broken up in 1826. Superb is mostly associated with Richard Goodwin Keats who commanded her as captain from 1801 until...

 was in company with the Bellerophon. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief on the Mediterranean Station

Mediterranean Fleet

Several countries have or have had a Mediterranean Fleet in their navy. See:* Mediterranean Fleet * French Mediterranean Fleet* Mediterranean Squadron * United States Sixth Fleet...

in 1831 and was still serving in that role when he died in 1833.