James Gordon (Royal Navy officer) James Gordon (Royal Navy officer) Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Alexander Gordon, GCB (6 October 1782 – 8 January 1869) was a Royal Navy officer. As a volunteer, he fought at the Battle of Groix, at the Battle of the Glorious First of June and at the Battle of Cape St Vincent during the French Revolutionary Wars and then, as a midshipman, served under Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile. Gordon became commanding officer of the 28-gun frigate which took part of a hard-fought action between three British ships and the combined forces of a
Sidney Smith (Royal Navy officer) prisoner exchange as completed. Following Nelson's overwhelming victory at the Battle of the Nile, Smith was sent to the Mediterranean as captain of , a captured 80-gun French ship of the line which had been brought into the Royal Navy. It was not a purely naval appointment, although he was ordered to place himself under the command of Lord St Vincent, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. St Vincent gave him orders as Commodore with permission to take British ships under his command as required in the Levant. He also carried a military and diplomatic mission to Istanbul where his brother