I represent William Hargood. I was the lieutenant aboard HMS Port Royal. I was born in 1762. I enlisted in the Navy at 11 years old as a midshipman. (In case you’re wondering: No, enlisting in the Navy that young was not at all unusual in the 18th century.) The Port Royal was a sloop captured from the French in 1778. It spent 1780 and 1781 patrolling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. As the Spanish invasion of Pensacola began it was decided that our guns, ammunition, and men were better spent defending Pensacola on shore. I commanded the seamen stationed at the Naval Redoubt, at a location the British called The Red Cliffs, but which the Spanish called Barrancas. After the surrender was signed, I and the 51 men serving under me boarded Spanish ships to take us and the other survivors of the siege north to New York. Upon his return to London, Captain Robert Deans of HMS Mentor requested a court martial to clear his record from the loss of his ship, and I was one of two witnesses that testified on his behalf. I went back to sea and took part in the victory over the French in the West Indies. I commanded HMS Bellisle under Nelson and Collingwood at Trafalgar in 1805. I worked my way up the ranks until I was commissioned admiral in 1831 – and I was knighted, for good measure. I died in 1839, and at that time, I may have been one of the last survivors of the Gulf Coast campaign.
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