Robert Cavendish Spencer

Sir Robert Cavendish Spencer KCH (24 October 1791 – 4 November 1830) was an English officer of the Royal Navy. Well-connected by birth, he made a naval career, which attracted the sons of the nobility and also of those from naval backgrounds, to serve under him and, despite liberal politics, worked as a reforming administrator with the future William IV of the United Kingdom.^[1]

Born on 24 October 1791, he was the third son of George Spencer, 2nd Earl Spencer, and brother of John Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer, Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer, George Spencer, and Sarah Lyttelton. In August 1804 he entered the navy on board HMS Tigre with Captain Benjamin Hallowell, and served under him, in Tigre and afterwards in HMS Malta—being promoted to be lieutenant on 13 December 1810—till appointed to command the brig HMS Pelorus, in October 1812.^[1][2] On 22 January 1813 Spencer was promoted to be commander of HMS Kite, from which he was moved into HMS Espoir, one of the squadron off Marseille, under the command of Captain Thomas Ussher.^[3]

On 19 January 1814, he was appointed to HMS Carron, stationed on the coast of North America; and was promoted to post rank by the Commander-in-Chief, North American Station, on 4 June 1814.^[2] He was engaged in operations against Fort Bowyer in September 1814.^[3] and New Orleans.^[4] Captain Spencer was mentioned in dispatches for his part in reconnoitering the Bayou Catalan, so as to determine a suitable location for British forces to disembark, in order to attack New Orleans.^[a][b] He headed to Fort Bowyer for a second time in February 1815. Spencer was among the sailors who landed near Mobile, and was second in command of the Naval party.^[7]

As per the letter sent by Rear Admiral Pulteney Malcolm to the Spanish Governor dated 15 March 1815, Spencer had been detailed to conduct a strict enquiry as a third party, regarding the property losses of Spanish inhabitants of Florida, specifically Spanish fugitive slaves who had fled their owners to the company of Edward Nicolls and George Woodbine.^[8] Spencer did not share Nicolls's abolitionist stance and was genuinely attempting to do his job.^[9] Rear Admiral Malcolm believed that in cases where formerly enslaved persons could not be persuaded to return to their owners, the British government would undertake to remunerate the owners.^[8] His counterpart Vicente Sebastián Pintado travelled to Prospect Bluff, arriving there on 7 April, Spencer having arrived earlier.^[10][11][c] The enquiry was in addition to two activities he was originally tasked with by Cochrane on 25 February 1815, delivering needed provisions, and investigating the Prospect Bluff garrison's debts.^[10]

Cochrane had set the precedence that the fugitive slaves could not be returned by force to the Spanish.^[d] Even before this, the same rationale was mentioned in Robert Henry's communication to Manrique, dated January 12, which puts forward the same argument that the armed men of the Corps of Colonial Marines outnumbered their European counterparts by a ratio of five to one.^[15] Urcullo concurred, and mentioned this in his report to Manrique dated January 23, 1815.^[15]

In April 1815, Spencer spent much of that month at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, its garrison comprising Britain's Red Stick Indian allies in part, but primarily the fugitive slaves, with whom he was charged with settling their claims and dismissing them from British service in the Corps of Colonial Marines.^[e] Spencer would not allow the runaway Spanish slaves to be returned by force.^[17] Innerarity mentions that Spencer 'expostulated with, encouraged, threatened, advised and did every thing short of... the application of force'.^[9] Pintado noted that Spencer would warn the fugitive that if they were to remain, upon the imminent departure of the British they would lose their protection, 'explaining to them the danger in which they were in of being caught by the Indians and delivered to their masters in hope of receiving a reward from them.'^[9] In a few instances, when a fugitive slave was being interrogated by Spencer and Pintado, and had the impression they would be taken away by force, the reaction was to either head into the forest or threaten retaliatory violence, noted Pintado.^[9] Lieutenant Colonel Edward Nicolls received orders to withdraw his troops from the fort at Prospect Bluff.^[f]

In accordance with Cochrane's orders, Cydnus was moored off Prospect Bluff.^[19] Sir Alexander Cochrane appointed Spencer to command Cydnus^[20] on 19 April 1815,^[21] for his efforts in Louisiana and Florida,^[7] as Captain Frederick Langford died on 17 February 1815 whilst in the Gulf of Mexico.^[22][23] Cydnus embarked the Royal Marine detachment on 22 April, arriving at Bermuda on 13 June 1815.^[24] Cydnus next sailed to Halifax, arriving on 24 June 1815.^[25] He was in attendance at the court martial of Robert Falcon, his officers and men for the loss of HMS Cyane, which took place on board Akbar at Halifax on 28 June 1815.^[26]

He left the North America and West Indies Station and arrived in Portsmouth on 22 December 1815.^[27] In 1815 Spencer commanded HMS Cydnus on the home station, and in 1817–1819 the 26-gun frigate HMS Ganymede in the Mediterranean, where he conducted a negotiation with the Bey of Tunis. From 1819 to 1822, he commanded HMS Owen Glendower on the South American station, and from 1823 to 1826, the 46-gun frigate HMS Naiad in the Mediterranean, where he took part in the operations against Algiers in the summer of 1824. He was then employed on the coast of Greece, during the Greek War of Independence.^[2]

From August 1827 to September 1828, Spencer was private secretary and Groom of the Bedchamber to the Duke of Clarence, then Lord High Admiral. They worked on naval reform in the areas of gunnery and steam power. In October 1828, he was nominated Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order, and was knighted on 24 November. In September 1828 he was appointed to command HMS Madagascar, again serving in the Mediterranean.^[2]

Spencer died, off Alexandria, on 4 November 1830; he had just been recalled to the United Kingdom as surveyor-general of the ordnance. He was unmarried.^[2] He was buried in Malta. A memorial to his memory was erected in Great Brington sculpted by Francis Chantrey.^[28]

• Boyd, Mark F. (1937). "Events at Prospect Bluff on the Apalachicola River, 1808-1818". Florida Historical Quarterly. 16 (2): 55–96. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
• Hughes, Christine F.; Brodine, Charles E., eds. (2023). The Naal War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 4. Washington: Naval Historical Center (GPO). ISBN 978-1-943604-36-4.
• James, William (1818). A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of the Late War Between Great Britain and the United States of America. Vol. 2. Published privately for the author.
• Landers, Jane G (2010). Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-05416-4.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Spencer, Robert Cavendish". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Marshall, John (1829). "Spencer, Robert Cavendish" . Royal Naval Biography. Vol. sup, part 3. London: Longman and Company. p. 256-265.
• Millett, Nathaniel (2013). The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and Their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-81-304454-5 – via Florida Scholarship online within Oxford University Press.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.
• American State Papers: Foreign Relations 1815–1822. Vol. 4. Washington: Gales & Seaton. 1834.
• "Documents Relating to Colonel Edward Nicholls and Captain George Woodbine in Pensacola, 1814". Florida Historical Quarterly. The Greenslade Papers: 51–54. July 1931.
• The Naval Chronicle, vol. 34, London: Joyce Gold, 1815