Francis Hosier

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Francis Hosier (1673-1727), was a British vice-admiral.

He was lieutenant in Rooke's flagship at the Battle of Barfleur in 1693.
He captured the Heureux off Cape Clear in 1710 and distinguished himself in action with the Spanish off Cartagena in 1711.

After the War of the Spanish Succession, he was suspended as a suspected Jacobite until 1717, but became vice-admiral in 1723.

In 1726 he was sent to command a squadron in the West Indies to prevent Spain from shipping its treasures home. At first he met with success and Hosier decided to continue to blockade Porto Bello. Yellow fever broke out and Hosier himself died of the fever as did 4,000 others. Hosier's body was 'embalmed and buried in the ballast' of his ship, and carried back to England. He was buried in the family vault at St Nicholas, Deptford on 28 February 1728.

Hosier was blamed for the disaster. Some years after Hosier's death Admiral Vernon accomplished what Hosier had failed to do: he captured Porto Bello with only six ships in 1739, and gave rise to a well-known piece of doggerel from a poem by Richard Glover:

“

Heed, oh! heed our fatal story

I am Hosier's injured ghost
You, who now have purchased glory,
At this place where I was lost.

”