Henry Inman (Royal Navy officer)

Captain Henry Inman was a British Royal Navy officer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, serving in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Inmans service in the American war was punctuated by three shipwrecks the burning of HMS Lark off Rhode Island in the face of a superior French squadron, the grounding of HMS Santa Monica on Tortola and the foundering of Hector following an engagement with two French ships in the MidAtlantic. After the war he was placed in reserve until the Spanish Armament of 1790, when he was given command of the 14gun cutter HMS Pygmy stationed off the Isle of Man.

Henry Inman was born in 1762, the son of the vicar of the Somerset village of Burrington, Reverend George Inman. Educated by his father until the age of 14, Inman was sent to join the Royal Navy in 1776, posted aboard the 90gun second rate HMS Barfleur. Barfleurs captain was Sir Samuel Hood, later to become Viscount Hood, who formed a close personal and professional attachment to his subordinate that continued throughout Inmans military service. After two years on Barfleur, Inman was transferred to the frigate HMS160Lark in 1778 for service off New England. The American Revolutionary War had broken out three years earlier, but Barfleur had been based in Britain and so there had been no opportunity for action aboard Hoods ship. His career in Lark was cut short onAugust 1778, when Captain John Brisbane, the senior officer off Rhode Island, ordered the frigate beached and burnt with four other ships when a French fleet under ViceAdmiral Comte dEstaing appeared off the harbour. Inman an

Source: Wikipedia