Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mends, Robert
MENDS, Sir ROBERT (1767?–1823), commodore, of a Pembrokeshire family, entered the navy in 1779 on board the Culloden with Captain George Balfour, and in her was present at the action off Cape St. Vincent and the relief of Gibraltar in January 1780. Afterwards in the Guadeloupe frigate with Captain Hugh Robinson, he was present in the action off the mouth of the Chesapeake on 16 March 1781, and at the defence of York town, where the Guadeloupe was destroyed, and Mends, then not fourteen (Marshall), lost his right arm, besides being wounded in the left knee. On his recovery, he was again with Captain Balfour in the Conqueror, one of the van of the fleet in the battle of Dominica, where he was severely wounded in the head by a splinter. In 1786 he was in the Grampus with Commodore Edward Thompson [q. v.] on the coast of Africa. On 26 Aug. 1789 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He was then for some time in the Childers sloop in the Channel; in 1793 was in the Colossus in the Mediterranean, and was present at the occupation of Toulon; and in 1795, still in the Colossus, was in the action off L'Orient, 23 June, when he was severely burnt by an explosion of powder. On 15 Dec. 1796 he was promoted to be commander, and for the next three years commanded the Diligence sloop on the Jamaica station. He was advanced to post rank on 2 May 1800, and continuing on the same station, successively commanded the Abergavenny, Thunderer, and Quebec frigate, returning to England in the Néréide in September 1802.
In 1805 he was appointed to command the Sea Fencibles of the Dublin district: and in 1808 to the Arethusa frigate, in the bay of Biscay and on the north coast of Spain. On the morning of 6 April 1809 she assisted in the closing scene of the action between the Amethyst and Niemen [see Seymour, Sir Michael, 1768–1834]. The Arethusa's share in it was small; but as Mends was severely wounded in the head by a splinter, it is clear that the statement that to her fire the French made no return (James, Naval History, v. 15) is incorrect. In the summer of 1810, in command of a squadron on the coast of Spain, Mends destroyed several French batteries; for which service, in addition to a formal letter of thanks from the Junta of Gallicia, he received the order of the Cross of Victory of the Asturias, and the nominal rank of major-general of the Spanish army. From 1811 to 1814 he was superintendent of the prison hulks in Portsmouth Harbour. On 25 May 1815 he was knighted, on receiving permission to wear the cross of the order of Charles III of Spain; and in April 1816, the pension of 7l., which had been granted him for the loss of his arm, was increased to 300l. In June 1821 he was appointed commodore and commander-in-chief on the west coast of Africa, with his broad pennant first in the Iphigénie, and afterwards in the Owen Glendower frigate. He died on board the Owen Glendower at Cape Coast on 4 Sept. 1823.
Mends married in 1802 a daughter of James Butler of Bagshot, and had issue three sons; of whom one, a midshipman of the Owen Glendower, died at Sierra Leone three months after his father; another, James Augustus Mends, died a captain on the retired list, in 1875; the third, George Clarke Mends, was a retired vice-admiral at his death in 1885. The present admiral, Sir William Robert Mends, G.C.B., is the son of Sir Robert's brother, Admiral William Bowen Mends, who died in 1864.
[Marshall's Royal Nav. Biog. iii. (vol. ii. pt. i.) 270; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict. s.n. George Clarke Mends.]