Basil Beaumont

Basil Beaumont
Rear-Admiral Basil Beaumont (Michael Dahl)
Born	1669
Died	1703
Nationality	British

Basil Beaumont (born 1669 died 1703), rear-admiral, was the fifth son, amongst the twenty-one children, of Sir Henry Beaumont, of Stoughton Grange and Cole Orton, a distant cousin of the Duke of Buckingham (Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, and Gardiner's '"Hist. of England"', ii 317).

Of his early service in the navy there is no record: it was short and uneventful, and on 28 October 1688 he was appointed lieutenant of the Portsmouth. Six months later, 21 April 1689, he was appointed captain of HMS Centurion, which ship was lost in Plymouth Sound in a violent storm on 25 December of the same year. Although so young a captain, no blame attached to him. He was accordingly appointed, after some months, to HMS Dreadnought, and early in 1692 was transferred to HMS Rupert, in which ship he took part in the battle of Barfleur. He continued in the Rupert during the following year; and in 1694 commanded HMS Canterbury in the Mediterranean. In 1696 he commanded HMS Montague, in the fleet cruising in the English Channel and off Ushant, and was for a short time detached as commodore of an inshore squadron. He was afterwards transferred, at short intervals, to HMS Neptune, HMS Essex, and HMS Duke, whilst in command of the squadron off Dunkirk, during the remainder of 1696 and till the peace. In November 1698 he was appointed to HMS Resolution, and during the next year was senior officer at Spithead, with a special commission for commanding in chief and holding courts-martial (23 February 1699). In the end of August he was ordered to pay the ship off. He commissioned her again some months later, and continued in her for the next two years, for a great part of which time he lay in the Downs, commanding — as he wrote — "a number of ships of consequence, with no small trouble and a good deal of charge", on which he referred it to the lord high admiral, "if this does not require more than barely commanding as the eldest captain" (9 April 1702).