Lemuel Francis Abbott

Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, had a rather less auspicious start to his career than his later rank and title would suggest. Born in Staffordshire in 1735, Jervis fled his home to join the navy, only to return after hearing of his parents’ distress. Through the sponsorship of Lady Jane Hamilton (the mother-in-law of Emma Hamilton, Horatio Nelson’s lover), he managed to join as an able seaman in 1749 and was shortly promoted midshipman. After serving in the Caribbean, Jervis saw action in the Seven Years' War in North America, notably at Quebec in 1759 where he commanded the sloop HMS Porcupine and worked closely with General Wolfe and (the then sailing master) James Cook. After distinguished service in the American Revolutionary War and the Relief of Gibraltar in 1782, Jervis was knighted and pursued a career in politics, becoming MP for Launceston in Cornwall.

Jervis is, however, best known for his command of the Mediterranean Fleet in the French Revolutionary Wars. He attained this post in 1795 and, as Nelson would later do, took HMS Victory as his flagship. This was the theatre of his most famous action, from which his subsequent earldom took its name. The Battle of Cape St Vincent took place on the 14 February 1797 and began when Jervis realised that his force of fifteen ships of the line was outnumbered almost two-to-one by the Spanish; ‘enough, Sir, no more of that; the die is cast, and if there are fifty sail I will go through them’, he remarked, having been told the strength of his enemy.¹ This battle is also well remembered for the heroism of Commodore Horatio Nelson, who against orders, broke formation in his crippled ship HMS Captain to come alongside the San Nicholas. Having boarded the Spanish ship (which duly surrendered), Nelson then led his men on to the San Josef, whose rigging had become entangled with the San Nicholas. Nelson captured two ships but had acted without authority. After the battle, when reminded of this by Sir Robert Calder, Jervis quipped: ‘It certainly was so, and if you ever commit such a breach of your orders, I will forgive you also.’²

Created an Earl for his victory at Cape St Vincent, Jervis was given the command of the Channel Fleet in 1800, protecting Britain from a possible French invasion. It was in this post that he made his famous comment to the Board of Admiralty: ‘I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only that they will not come by sea’.³ Despite being something of a martinet, he was given to displays of extraordinary generosity towards his ratings. He was also an active philanthropist, raising and donating money towards the care of naval orphans, wounded survivors of the Battle of Waterloo and victims of famine in Ireland.

The painting

The painting shows Jervis wearing an admiral's uniform which dates to post June 1795, when new regulations were brought in by the navy. The uniform features two gold epaulettes of an admiral with three silver stars on each. Abbott is likely to have completed this portrait at some point between 1795 and 1797/8, as the portrait shows him wearing the gold medal given for the victory of St Vincent. The admiral also wears the badge of the Order of the Bath, to which he was initiated in 1783 for his efforts in Gibraltar.

This portrait must have been undertaken in a very similar period to Lemuel Francis Abbott's portraits of Admiral Horation Nelson, the most iconic of which date to 1797 and 1799 and are preserved in the collections of The National Portrait Gallery, London, and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, respectively.⁴ Another version of this portrait ascribed to the studio of Abbott, featuring a marine landscape with boats in the background, is in The National Portrait Gallery, London.⁵

Note on Provenance

An annotated card kept in the Heinz Library suggests that this painting was acquired by Knoedler directly from the Locker-Lampson family. It is possible that the work had descended from Edward Hawke Locker (1777–1849), founder of the Greenwich Hospital's Naval Gallery.⁶ Locker had owned a serious collection of naval portraiture, several examples of which he inherited from his father Captain William Locker (1731– 1800), including a portrait of Nelson by Abbott which survives in a private collection.⁷

¹ J. Tucker, Memoirs of Admiral The Right Honourable The Earl of St Vincent, London 1844, I, p. 255.

² A.T. Mahan, The Life of Nelson, London 1897, vol. I, p. 238.

³ R. Anidora, Iron Admirals: Naval Leadership in the Twentieth Century, Westport 2000, p. 3.

⁴ https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw04633/Horatio-Nelson; https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14362

⁵ https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05573/John-Jervis-Earl-of-St-Vincent

⁶ C. Roach, 'Domestic Display and Imperial Identity: A Visual Record of the Art Collections of Edward Hawke Locker', in Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 75, no. 3, pp. 411–28.

⁷ R. Walker, The Nelson Portraits, London 1998, pp. 200–1, no. 13.