Samuel Graves
| Samuel Graves | |
|---|---|
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|
| Born | 17 April 1713 |
| Died | 8 March 1787 (aged 73) |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of Great Britain
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Rank | Admiral |
| Commands held | North American Station |
| Battles/wars |
Seven Years' War American Revolutionary War |
Admiral Samuel Graves (17 April 1713 – 8 March 1787) was a British Royal Navy admiral who is probably best known for his role early in the American War of Independence.
Son of Samuel Graves, he was thought to have been born in Northern Ireland where his grandfather, Captain James Graves (1654–1689), who married a daughter of Sir John Herdman of Stannington, lived, before he was robbed of his regiment's wages and murdered in his bed. Graves joined the Royal Navy in 1732. Made lieutenant in 1739, he participated in the 1741 expedition against Cartagena, serving on the frigate Norfolk, under his uncle and future admiral, Captain Thomas Graves. Samuel Graves’s cousin Thomas, Captain Graves’s son and also future admiral, served alongside him on the third-rate ship-of-the-line Norfolk (80). Promoted to command of the sloop Bonetta in 1743, Graves served in the West Indies until 1747, commanding Ripon’s Prize, and, later, Enterprise.
In 1756 Graves rose to command the Duke. Two years later, Graves returned to command of the Duke, serving again under Hawke in the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759. He continued in command of the Duke until his promotion to rear admiral in October 1762.
In October 1770 Graves rose to vice admiral, and in July 1774 assumed command of the North American Station. Graves’s orders were vague, his resources overstretched, and his task, in the words of the Dictionary of National Biography, “perhaps the most ungracious duty that has ever fallen to the lot of a naval officer.” According to his instructions, Graves was charged with supporting customs officials enforcing the various revenue and trade acts governing North American colonial trade within the empire, especially the Boston Port Act. With only 26 ships and over one-thousand miles of coastline from Nova Scotia to Florida to patrol, Graves’s task was Sisyphean.
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