Thomas Fremantle (Royal Navy officer)

Sir Thomas Fremantle
Sir Thomas Fremantle
Born	20 November 1765 Aston Abbotts, Buckinghamshire
Died	19 December 1819 (1819-12-20) (aged 54) Naples, Italy
Place of burial	Garden of Don Carlo Califano, Naples, Italy
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Rank	Vice Admiral
Commands held	HMS Spitfire HMS Tartar HMS Inconstant HMS Ganges HMS Neptune Adriatic Sea
Battles/wars	French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order

Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Francis Fremantle, 1st Baron Fremantle, GCB GCH (20 November 1765 – 19 December 1819) was a British naval officer in the Royal Navy whose list of accolades includes action in three separate fleet actions, a close personal friendship with Lord Nelson and a barony in Austria.

Fremantle was born in 1765, and joined the navy in 1777 aged just eleven aboard the frigate HMS Hussar. Profiting from family influence, active commissions in the American War of Independence and a keen sense of seamanship and aggressive tactical awareness, promotion came easily, making lieutenant on 13 March 1782 while on duty in Jamaica and being promoted to commander on 13 November 1790 in command of the sloop HMS Spitfire. Although he did not achieve fame with his service in this period, he was in a good position to profit from the mass promotions which accompanied the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in 1793, being made a Post Captain on 16 May 1793 in the small frigate HMS Tartar. It was in this ship that he first came to Nelson's eye, when they both served at the Siege of Bastia, where Nelson lost an eye and Fremantle gained a reputation for daring action, taking his ship under the fortress's walls despite heavy fire from overhead, which had already sunk one frigate in the bay.

The following year Fremantle was commanding the frigate HMS Inconstant when he was engaged in Lord Hotham's indecisive and cautious fleet action in the Gulf of Genoa on 14 March 1795. The French fleet had departed Toulon and were making for the Italian coast, being chased by Hotham's fleet and an approaching storm. Fremantle, despite unspoken rules of engagement which did not require him to engage ships larger than his own, used his superior speed to overtake the 80-gun Ça Ira, which had been damaged in a collision. By taking his ship under the massive bow of his opponent, he managed to slow her enough that the oncoming British fleet was able to capture Ça Ira and another French ship which had turned back in a rescue attempt. The first British ship to the scene was Nelson's HMS Agamemnon, and the respect between the two officers continued to grow.