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Auction: 19001 - Orders, Decorations and Medals
Lot: 6

The fine Naval General Service Medal to Admiral's Domestic J. Biggs, Royal Navy, who served aboard H.M.S. Pompee as Servant of Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane during the capture of Guadaloupe in February 1810

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Martinique, Guadaloupe (John Briggs. [sic.]), light edge nicks and scratches in obverse field, good very fine

Provenance:
Glendining's, October 1912, January 1931.

John Biggs was born at Ilford, Essex circa 1780. He entered H.M.S. Leyden, 64 guns, as a Landsman on 4 April 1807, taking part in the expedition to Copenhagen that year. It was considered necessary to break Napoleon's Continental System by maintaining the Baltic trade; the prospect of a Danish fleet in French hands unnerved London. Leyden arrived off the Danish capital on 7 August with two Companies of the Coldstream Guards aboard. She took part in the bombardment of the city, which killed some 195 civilians. The bombardment provoked mixed reactions in Parliament, Lord Erskine condemning it as a 'damnable measure'.

Biggs returned to the Downs on 18 April 1808, and was drafted as a Landsman to H.M.S. Pompee, 74 guns, commanded by Captain George Cockburn. Pompee sailed immediately for the West Indies, capturing the French brig Pleides, 16 guns, in the Atlantic on 20 October. She arrived off the French island of Martinique (clasp) in December and took part in its reduction, fighting a ship-to-ship duel with the French D'Hautpoulh, 74 guns, on 17 April 1809. Biggs is confirmed as having been aboard ship during this action, though he never claimed the 'Pompee' clasp to his Naval General Service Medal. On 11 December, Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane placed his flag aboard Pompee. Biggs appears in the ship's Muster as 'Admiral's Domestic' (ADM 37/2163). He was present at the capture of Guadaloupe (clasp) on 5 February 1810; sold with copied service papers.




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Sold for
£2,100