Sir Thomas Pasley, 1st Baronet

Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, 1st Baronet (2 March 1734 – 29 November 1808) was a Royal Navy officer who served in the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary Wars. In his youth he was renowned as an efficient and able frigate officer and in later life became a highly respected squadron commander in the Channel Fleet. It was during the latter service when he was awarded his baronetcy after losing a leg at the Glorious First of June, aged 60.

Early career Thomas Pasley was born in 1734 to James Pasley (1695–1773), of Craig, Dumfries and his wife Magdalene, daughter of Robert Elliott, of Middlehomehill, Roxburghshire. Thomas was the fifth of the eleven Pasley children, a family of minor landowners in the village of Craig, near Langholm, Dumfriesshire. He was the brother of Gilbert Pasley (1733–1781), Surgeon-General of Madras, and Margaret, mother of Sir John Malcolm. Gilbert's daughter, Eliza, married Sir Robert Campbell (1771–1858) 1st Bt., of Carrick Buoy, County Donegal, a director of the East India Company and a commissioner for the lieutenancy of London.

Thomas entered the Royal Navy in 1751 aged 16, and served as a midshipman aboard the sixth-rate frigate HMS Garland. Pasley's first captain was Maurice Suckling, who commanded him in the sloop HMS Weazel off Jamaica. Pasley later moved to the ship of the line HMS Dreadnought under Robert Digby, who was impressed enough with the young officer to bring him along when Digby was transferred to HMS Bideford in 1757.

In 1762, with the war coming to a close, Pasley was made commander and given the small ship HMS Albany with which to convoy merchant ships across the Irish Sea. At the pace in 1763 he retained this duty in the 8-gun HMS Ranger and was also employed in seizing smugglers between the islands. In 1769, Pasley joined HMS Weazel which was tasked with transporting structural engineers to the Guinea coast. Arriving in the worst of the wet season, Weazel soon became infested with malaria and all four engineers and the majority of the crew succumbed and died in a short period. So depleted was Weazel's crew that Pasley was forced to impress sailors from West African merchant ships in order to return to Britain safely.