Peter Rainier (Royal Navy officer, born 1784)

Captain Peter Rainier (24 August 1784–13 April 1836) was a Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Due to the patronage of his uncle, Vice-Admiral Peter Rainier, he was promoted quickly through the ranks so that by the age of twenty he was already a post-captain. He was given command of the 36-gun frigate HMS "Caroline" and on 18 October 1806 he fought a successful action in her against the Dutch 36-gun frigate "Maria Reijersbergen" at Batavia. He captured the treasure ship "St Raphael" in January 1807 off the Philippines, which had on board £500,000 worth of bullion coin. He left "Caroline" later in the year and received his next command, the 38-gun frigate HMS "Niger", in June 1813. In "Niger" he participated in the capture of the French 44-gun frigate "Ceres" off the Cape Verde Islands in January 1814. He left "Niger" at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and did not receive another command until 1831 when he was given the 120-gun ship of the line HMS "Britannia", in which he served in the Mediterranean Fleet until 1835. He died on 13 April of the following year in Southampton after a short illness.
Early life.
Peter Rainier was born on 24 August 1784 to John and Susannah Rainier. The Rainier family was of Huguenot descent, with his great-grandfather having left France for Ramsgate when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. The family was well known in the British naval community, with many family members serving in the Royal Navy.
Naval career.
Rainier joined the Royal Navy in August 1795 in the ship of the line HMS "Pompee", commanded by his uncle Captain James Vashon. In the proceeding years he served in frigates commanded by Captain Arthur Kaye Legge and Captain Charles Adam before being promoted to lieutenant in early 1802. He was given command of the 18-gun sloop HMS "Dasher" in December 1804, after the death of her previous captain, on the East Indies Station. The commander in chief there was another uncle, his godfather Vice-Admiral Peter Rainier. The admiral was infamous for shamelessly advancing and promoting his family, as he had already done for Rainier's cousin John Spratt Rainier, a future rear-admiral. Almost immediately Rainier was promoted to commander by his uncle and in February 1805 he was made an acting post-captain.
The newly promoted Rainier was given command of the 40-gun frigate HMS "Dedaigneuse" at the same time, and commanded her until April when he transferred into the 36-gun frigate HMS "Caroline". Rainier's rise through the ranks was infamously fast, being only twenty years old at the time, and a number of records failed to note his promotions to lieutenant or commander at all because of the brevity in which he held these ranks.
Action of 18 October 1806.
Rainier's rank as a post-captain was confirmed on 17 January 1806. He continued to serve on the East Indies Station and was very successful in "Caroline" during the Java campaign of 1806–1807, fighting the action of 18 October 1806; Rainier had been patrolling off Batavia when he captured a small Dutch brig, the crew of which informed him that the Dutch 36-gun frigate "Phoenix" was making repairs at Onroost Island nearby and was vulnerable to attack. He sailed "Caroline" to the area and while doing so discovered two more Dutch brigs, these ones warships, of which he managed to capture one, the 14-gun "Zeerop", while the other hugged the coastline to escape where "Caroline" could not follow. While Rainier was securing the newly captured vessel "Phoenix" used the opportunity to sail from Onroost into Batavia Roads. From the crew of "Zeerop" Rainier learned that another Dutch frigate, the 36-gun "Maria Reijersbergen", was also at Batavia along with some smaller warships, the 20-gun "William", 18-gun "Patriot", and 14-gun "Zeephlong".
"Phoenix" having made her escape, Rainier chose to instead attack "Maria Reijersbergen" as the largest threat, despite his crew already being down by fifty-seven due to the needs of prize crews and sickness, and having been warned by his Dutch captives that she was already prepared for battle. Rainier sailed "Caroline" into the Roads and straight for the Dutch frigate, attacking her from extremely close range. The two ships fought each other in this position for half an hour before "Maria Reijersbergen" surrendered. The battle between the two frigates finished in very shallow water surrounded by dangerous shoals and so Rainier was not safely able to attack the other Dutch warships. Despite this inability to continue attacking, the remaining vessels, including the frigate "Phoenix", ran themselves aground to avoid the fate of "Maria Reijersbergen". Rainier brought the Dutch frigate away from Batavia before anchoring, having suffered twenty-two casualties compared to "Maria Reijersbergen"s fifty. She was bought into the Royal Navy and named HMS "Java". Despite the action being highly acclaimed, Rainier was not rewarded by the navy for it; it has been suggested that this was because of a combination of his young age (twenty-two at the time) and as a form of censure for how he had been so quickly promoted through his uncle's nepotism.
Treasure ship and end of Java campaign.
Rainier continued his successes in "Caroline" into 1807; on 27 January he was sailing off the Philippines when a strange sail was spotted, and upon "Caroline" approaching her she revealed herself to be Spanish. The ship was much smaller than "Caroline" but despite this when Rainier brought his ship alongside her the Spaniard opened fire; "Caroline" responded in kind and forced the Spaniard to surrender after killing or injuring twenty-seven members of her crew. Upon further investigation it was found that that ship was the 16-gun "St Raphael", sailing under the name of "Pallas" for the Philippine Company from Lima to Manila. She was operating as a treasure ship for the company and was carrying £500,000 of bullion coin and 1,700 quintals of copper, all of which was captured by Rainier in the action.
Peter Rainier, his patron and uncle, died in 1808 and left his fortune to Rainier and his cousin John. He had left the East Indies in 1805 and one of his replacements as commander-in-chief was Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, who in November 1806 had finished off the job Rainier had started at Batavia in October by destroying "Phoenix", "William", "Patriot", "Zeephlong", and their smaller consorts. However prior to this the two largest remaining Dutch warships, the 68-gun ships of the line "Revolutie" and "Pluto", had escaped. Pellew sent Rainier in "Caroline" alongside the 36-gun frigate HMS "Psyche" to hunt for these two ships in June, and on 30 August "Caroline" and "Psyche" successfully located the Dutch ships of the line in the fortified port of Griesse. Using this information Pellew would go on to destroy them in the Raid on Griesse in December, but by this point Rainier had left "Caroline", going home to England suffering from a probable fever.
Later service.
After recuperating from his illness Rainier began to repeatedly petition the Admiralty for another command, but was unsuccessful until June 1813 when he was given command of the brand new 38-gun frigate HMS "Niger". In "Niger" Rainier's first duty was to escort a valuable convoy of bullion coin to Spain, and he was then sent to the Texel with the 36-gun frigate HMS "Fortunee" under his orders to search for two French frigates. Poor weather meant Rainier was unable to find the French, but in November he captured the American 16-gun letter of marque "Dart" as she attempted to cross the Atlantic from New Orleans to France. In December he was sent as escort to another convoy alongside the 36-gun frigate HMS "Tagus" and on 5 January 1814 he was sailing with them off the Cape Verde Islands. The two frigates spotted a strange sail on the horizon and chased it, soon finding it to be the French 44-gun frigate "Ceres". By the morning of 6 January, after sailing 238 miles, "Tagus" had drawn close enough to begin firing at the frigate; one of her shots destroyed "Ceres"s mainmast just as Rainier was bringing "Niger" into position to also fire into the French ship. Being outnumbered and unable to manoeuvre, "Ceres" then surrendered off Santo António. He cruised off the coast of Brazil in "Niger" for a while after this before sailing home to decommission her.
For his services he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 16 September 1815. With the Napoleonic Wars at an end the rate of promotion for officers slowed down considerably and having to rely on seniority alone, Rainier never reached the top of the captains' list to be promoted to flag rank. He was however still rewarded for his services, becoming a naval aide-de-camp to King William IV on 4 August 1830. He did not serve at sea again until October 1831 when he took command of the 120-gun ship of the line HMS "Britannia". He served in "Britannia" in the Mediterranean Fleet of at first Vice-Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm and then Vice-Admiral Sir Josias Rowley, based at Malta. For at least some time he served as flag captain to Malcolm. He left the fleet and "Britannia" in February 1835.
Other work and retirement.
Since at least 1818 Rainier had lived in Hamilton Place, Southampton. He was a member of the Southampton Corporation and became a burgess in September 1826. In October of the following year he became a bailiff and then on 6 October 1829 he was made sheriff of Southampton. He also served as a magistrate for the county from 1825. He worked with his brother-in-law, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bowler, to record objects he discovered for the Royal Asiatic Society, and in 1833 they presented their findings on an engraved stone and avenue of sphinxes found by Rainier at the Temple of Kalabsha and Beni Hasan respectively in 1828 and 1829, when he travelled there while between commands. Rainier died at his home in Southampton on 13 April 1836 after a short illness, at the age of fifty-one.
Family.
Rainier married Elizabeth Crow of Middlesex (died 31 October 1852). Together they had four children: