Robert Corbet
| Robert Corbet | |
|---|---|
| Died | 13 September 1810 HMS Africaine, off Île Bourbon, Indian Ocean |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom |
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Years of service | 1790s to 1810 |
| Rank | Royal Navy Captain |
| Battles/wars |
French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars • Raid on Saint Paul • Action of 13 September 1810 |
Captain Robert Corbet RN (died 13 September 1810), often spelled Corbett, was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who was killed in action in highly controversial circumstances. Corbet was a strict disciplinarian, who regularly beat his men for the slightest infractions: so brutal was his regime that he provoked two mutinies, one simply at the rumour he was coming aboard a ship. These uprisings caused him to become even more vicious in his use of punishments and when he took his frigate HMS Africaine into action off Île Bourbon, his men failed to support him and may even have murdered him. In addition to his obsession with discipline and obedience, Corbet was regarded as an inefficient commander, whose standards of gunnery and training were so poor that when his ship did go into action it was ill-equipped to fight the French frigates stationed in the Indian Ocean.
Corbet was born in Shropshire; otherwise little is known of his childhood and youth. No connection of Corbet's paternal line has been discovered to the ancient Shropshire armigerous family: his parents were Robert Corbet of Wexford, Ireland, a captain in the Royal Navy and Susannah Woodward; his grandfather was the Rev Francis Corbet, Dean of St Patrick's, Dublin; his great-grandfather was Thomas Corbet, a merchant from Dunganon, Tyrone. In December 1796, he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1801 served in the Egyptian campaign in command of the cutter Fulminante. She was wrecked off the coast of Egypt while under his command.
In 1802 he was promoted to commander and in 1803 took command of the sloop HMS Bittern in the Mediterranean, catching the eye of Lord Horatio Nelson, who was impressed by him and in 1805 promoted him to captain in command of the frigate HMS Amfitrite. Whilst in command of Bittern he chased a French privateer, Hirondelle for 36 hours in a flat calm, with his crew at the sweeps the whole time. Four months later he moved to HMS Seahorse and in 1806 was transferred to the Jamaica station.
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