Royal Naval Biography/Mangin, Reuben Caillaud
REUBEN CAILLAUD MANGIN, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1807.]
This officer is a son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Henry Mangin, 12th dragoons, and a grand nephew of the late Brigadier-General John Caillaud, of Aston-House, co. Oxford, in whom, on the demise of his father, he found a protector, through whose parental kindness his future welfare was greatly promoted.
Mr. R. C. Mangin was born in Dublin, Nov. 1, 1780; and entered the naval service in 1794, under the patronage of Sir John Borlase Warren, Bart, with whom he served the greater part of his time as a midshipman, on board the Pomone, Canada, Temeraire, and Renown, from which latter ship he was removed into la Minerve frigate, commanded by Captain (now Sir George) Cockburn, on the Mediterranean station.
La Pomone, of 44 guns, bore Sir John B. Warren’s broad pendant, during the Quiberon expedition, in 1795[1]; and subsequently cruised with very considerable success on the Channel station, as will be seen by the following correct statement of the captures, &c. effected by her, and other ships composing the Western squadron, under that officer’s orders, in 1795 and 1797:
Twenty-five ships and vessels of war, including privateers, captured; twelve ditto destroyed; eighty-seven merchantmen taken, nineteen ditto, recaptured, and fifty-four destroyed; twenty-three neutrals detained, and part of each cargo condemned:– total 220.
In the Canada 74, Mr. Mangin was also present at the capture of many vessels; and bore a part in the action with M. Bompart’s squadron, off Ireland, Oct. 12, 1798[2]. His commission as a Lieutenant bears date Dec. 3, 1800; from which period he served on board the St. Fiorenzo and la Virginia frigates, until promoted to the rank of Commander, May 8, 1804[3].
For this latter step, and for his subsequent appointment to the Valorous praam, which led to his further advancement. Captain Mangin was indebted to the Earl of St. Vincent, whose friendship he had the honor of enjoying to the last moment of his lordship’s existence.
The operations of a small squadron employed off Dantzic during the siege of that city by the French army, in April and May, 1807, have already been noticed under the head of Captain Edward Chetham, C.B.[4], who was much indebted to the subject of this sketch for his assistance in rescuing the garrison of fort Weeickselmunde, at the very moment that a division of Marshal Lefebvre’s troops was about to occupy that position. For this important service. Captain Mangin was honored with the personal thanks of his Prussian Majesty, then at Pillau, to which port the remnant of a Russian corps, under General Kaminsky, had also been conducted by the British squadron.
Captain Mangin afterwards joined the fleet under Admiral Gambier, off Copenhagen, and through that officer’s recommendation he was made post on the 13th Oct. following. In the spring of 1811, we find him appointed, pro tempore, to the Saldanha frigate, on the Irish station, where he continued but for a short period; since which he has not been able to obtain another command.
Captain Mangin married, April 11, 1803, Magdalene, daughter of the Rev. H. D’Abzac, late Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; and by that lady he has four sons and two daughters still living. We should here observe, that the Mangin and D’Abzac families are both of French origin, and that the grandfathers of Captain and Mrs. Mangin left France at the same time, in consequence of the religious persecution that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantz.
Agents.– Messrs. Cooke, Halford, and Son.
- ↑ See Vol. I. note at p. 169 et seq.
- ↑ See Vol. I. p. 171, et seq.
- ↑ The St. Fiorenzo went to India with despatches, in 1802. See Memoir of Rear-Admiral Bingham.
- ↑ See p. 232.