Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Nassau 22 March 1808 (James Chapman, Midshipman.) light edge bruising, otherwise very fine £6000-8000

Provenance: Spink, December 1986; Turl Collection 2010.

Approximately 30 clasps issued for ‘Nassau 22 March 1808’. James Chapman is confirmed as a Midshipman aboard H.M.S. Nassau when, together with H.M.S. Stately, they jointly attacked and destroyed the Danish 74-gun ship Prindts Christian Frederick off Grenaa, Coast of Jutland, Denmark, on 22 March 1808. The Nassau suffered two men killed, and sixteen men wounded, whilst the Stately lost four men killed, and two officers and twenty-six men wounded. The loss to the Danish, out of a crew of five hundred and seventy-six, amounted to fifty-five men killed and eighty-eight wounded.

James Chapman was born on 9 April 1791, and joined the Royal Navy as First Class Volunteer on 1 October 1803, and was appointed to H.M.S. Nassau (Captain R. Campbell) later that year. He attained the rating of Midshipman on 22 June 1806, and he was employed in the latter for two years in blockading the Texel; he also accompanied the expedition against Copenhagen under Admiral Gambier in August and September 1807.
He was present on 22 March 1808, in company with the Stately, another 64, at the capture and destruction, on the coast of Zealand, of the Danish 74-gun ship Prindts Christian Frederick, after a running fight of great length and obstinacy.

In October 1813, being then in the Tremendous 74, he served on shore with the batteries at the reduction of Trieste, October 1813; and from 12 February to 9 April, 1814, while detached in charge of the imperial armed vessel Fidele and two of the ship’s boats to act in co-operation with the Austrian forces under Marshal Bellegarde, he was actively employed in preventing supplies from reaching Venice, Chioggia and Malamocco, and, on 23 March, Chapman commanded and led the troop-boats which stormed and carried Fort Caranella, near the Po di Levante, on which occasion he took up a formidable position before Brondolo, and in recognition of his conduct received the thanks of Marshal Bellegarde and Generals Marchal and Pulszky. Having passed his examination on 4 December 1811, and after service in H.M.S. Malta, bearing the Flag of Rear-Admiral B. Hallowell, he was appointed Lieutenant in the Orlando 36, Captain J. Clavell, 24 October 1814. He served with the latter at the blockade of the Chesapeake, and was paid off from her in August 1815. He was appointed retired Commander in 1859. In the course of his career Chapman's name appears, as a supernumerary for passage, on the books of no fewer than 73 ships of war, owing to the circumstances of his having been appointed Master of 18 or 19 different prize-vessels.