Thomas Staines

Captain Sir Thomas Staines (1776 – 13 July 1830) was an officer in the Royal Navy.

French Revolutionary Wars

Staines joined on 3 July 1796 on his promotion to Lieutenant. Commander Philip Wodehouse had taken command of Peterel by December 1796, when Peterel landed a small party under Lieutenant Thomas Staines on the coast of Corsica. The landing party attacked a Martello tower, which they captured, and threw its gun, a long 32-pounder, over the cliff.

Peterels next captain was Commander William Proby, Lord Proby, who took over in March 1797. In June 1797, Wodehouse authorised Staines to take 20 men in two of the ship's boats to cut out a French privateer that had been preying on merchant vessels off the coast of Tuscany. After a skirmish in which the British had five men wounded and the French lost several dead and wounded, the British took the privateer, which had a crew of 45 men and was armed with two long guns and several swivels. On 12 November 1798 the Spanish 40-gun frigate Flora, in company with the 40-gun Proserpina and the 34-gun ships Pomona and Casilda, captured Peterel whilst she was operating off Menorca. One of the Spanish ships fired a broadside after she surrendered. After removing the prisoners from the ship, the Spanish plundered their clothes and possessions, murdering a seaman who attempted to defend his property. This charge of ill-usage was officially contradicted in the Madrid Gazette of 12 April, but was, nevertheless, essentially true.

The Spanish squadron, already being chased the next day by several British ships, completely outsailed their pursuers and returned to Cartagena with the prisoners. After a detention of 14 days at Cartagena, Lieutenant Staines and his fellow prisoners were embarked in a merchant brig bound to Málaga; but they did not arrive there until 24 December, a westerly wind having obliged the vessel to anchor off Almeria, where she was detained upwards of three weeks, and her passengers confined on shore during that period. From Málaga, the British were marched to Gibraltar, under a strong escort of soldiers, who treated both officers and men with great brutality, but particularly Lieutenant Staines, who had received a sabre wound in the wrist whilst parrying a blow which one of those soldiers had aimed at his head. Thereafter, Peterel captured or cut out from ports an armed galley, a transport brig carrying cannons and ammunition, and some twenty merchant vessels. Staines frequently commanded the cutting out expeditions.

On 17 September 1814 HMS Briton under his command, along with HMS Tagus, were the first British ships to visit the Pitcairn Islands after the Bounty and discover the fate of the mutineers – this was six and half years after the American ship Topaz rediscovered Pitcairn. However, Staines was unaware of that discovery.

Honours Staines was knighted in three orders: as a Knight Commander of the Bath, Knight Commander of the Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit, and a Knight of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent.