Life

Bourne, in his earlier days apparently a merchant and shipowner, served in the parliamentary army during the civil war

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

, and on the remodelling of the fleet after William Batten

William Batten

Sir William Batten was an English naval officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1661 to 1667.Batten was the son of Andrew Batten, master in the Royal Navy. In 1625 he was stated to be one of the commanders of two ships sent on a whaling voyage to Spitsbergen by the Yarmouth...

's secession, having then the rank of major, was appointed to the command of the Speaker, a ship of the second rate. As captain of the Speaker he was for two years commander-in-chief on the coast of Scotland, and in September 1651 carried the Scottish records, regalia, and insignia taken in Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most important castles, both historically and architecturally, in Scotland. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep...

 to London, for which services he afterwards received a gold medal of the value of £60.

In 1652 he was captain of the Andrew, and in May was senior officer in the Downs, wearing a flag by special authority from Blake

Robert Blake (admiral)

Robert Blake was one of the most important military commanders of the Commonwealth of England and one of the most famous English admirals of the 17th century. Blake is recognised as the chief founder of England's naval supremacy, a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy into...

, when, on the 18th, the Dutch fleet under Maarten Tromp

Maarten Tromp

Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp was an officer and later admiral in the Dutch navy. His first name is also spelled as Maerten.-Early life:...

 anchored off Dover. It was thus Bourne who sent, both to the council of state and to Blake, the intimation of Tromp's presence on the coast, and who commanded that division of the fleet which had so important a share in the action of May. Without knowledge of the battle, the council had already on the 19th appointed Bourne rear-admiral of the fleet, a rank which he held during the whole of that year, and commanded in the third post in the battle near the Kentish Knock

Kentish Knock

Kentish Knock may refer to:* Kentish Knock, an area off the coast of Kent and Essex in England* Battle of the Kentish Knock, fought in October 1652* London Array, a wind farm near the Kentish Knock....

 on 28 September. But after the rude check sustained by Blake off Dungeness

Dungeness

Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh...

 on 30 November, it was found necessary to have some well-skilled and trustworthy man as commissioner on shore to superintend and push forward the equipment and manning of the fleets. To this office Bourne was appointed, and he continued to hold and exercise it not only during the rest of the Dutch war, but to the end of the protectorate. In this work he was indefatigable, and in a memorial to the admiralty, 18 September 1653, claimed, by his special knowledge, to have saved hundreds of pounds in buying masts and deals; from which we may perhaps assume that he had formerly been engaged in the Baltic trade. Nor was he backward in representing his merits to the admiralty; and although he wrote on 13 October 1653, that his modesty did not suit the present age, it did not prevent him from quaintly urging his claims both to pecuniary reward and to honourable distinction. This last, he says, 13 April 1653, "would give some countenance and quicken the work. I ask for the sake of the service, for I am past such toys as to be tickled with a feather".

After the Restoration, being unwilling to accept the new order of things, he emigrated to America; the last that is known of him is the pass permitting him "to transport himself and family into any of the plantations" (May 1662). On 3 April 1689 the secretary of the admiralty wrote to a Major Bourne in Abchurch Lane, desiring him to attend the board, who wished "to discourse him about some business relating to their majesties' service"; and 011 28 June 1690 a Nehemiah Bourne was appointed captain of the Monmouth (Admiralty Minutes). If this was the old puritan, he must have been of a very advanced age : it may more probably have been a son. In either case he apparently refused to take up the appointment, for on 9 July another captain was appointed in his stead.