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Admiral of the White Sir John Balchen (2 February 1670 – 4 October 1744) was a Royal Navy officer with a long and distinguished career during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the course of his service at sea, Balchen saw action in numerous battles against the French and Spanish navies across 60 years and three separate wars. He was twice captured by the French in action, both times being exonerated and commended for the defence of his ships against overwhelming odds.
Balchen died in the shipwreck of the 100-gun first-rate HMS Victory off the Casquets in the Channel Islands during operations to deter French blockading of Spanish and Portuguese ports during the War of the Austrian Succession. A capable and efficient officer, Balchen never found the wealth and prestige fellow officers secured in other commissions, a fact which remained a source of frustration to him until his elevation to knighthood shortly before his death.
In 1703, Balchen was transferred to the 44-gun frigate HMS Adventure in the North Sea. This was an area of great importance to the British war effort due to the convoys carrying naval supplies from Scandinavia, which crossed it regularly. The commission, however, yielded few opportunities in the way of prize money. The next year, he was transferred to the 54-gun HMS Chester, with which he was dispatched to the Coast, a region considered almost as fatal as the West Indies. Surviving once again, Balchen remained in the Chester and was attached to the convoys bound for Portugal and Virginia.
Balchen suffered his first defeat on 10 October 1707. Leaving the safety of Portsmouth harbour, his convoy was ambushed by a French squadron under Forbin and Duguay-Trouin, in what became the Battle at the Lizard. Although the dozen French warships were larger and stronger than the convoy escorts, Balchen took his ship into battle with the other warship captains. This action allowed the merchant convoy time to disperse and escape. The ensuing battle was one-sided, with the French warships battering three English ships into submission over several hours, including Balchen's command, which had been boarded by three French ships of the line. One British warship escaped, but HMS Devonshire exploded with the loss of nearly 900 lives. The French captured just 15 merchant ships from the hundreds in the convoy, as most made English ports before their pursuers could catch them.
Briefly a prisoner in France, Balchen, as an officer, was allowed to return to England on parole, where a court martial exonerated him for the loss of his ship and commended him for a brave defence. In 1709, he was formally exchanged for a French officer and returned to naval service, receiving command of the newly built 60-gun HMS Gloucester in August. Leaving Spithead on his first cruise in October, he had been at sea for just a few hours when Duguay-Trouin again appeared with a squadron of five ships of the line. Unable to outrun his opponents, Balchen engaged the 74-gun flagship Lis before being forced to surrender after being dismasted and threatened with boarding.
Balchen was exchanged almost immediately and the court martial, once again, exonerated him from all blame for the loss of his ship. He was rewarded for his bravery with command of HMS Colchester in 1710, in which, on 9 November, Balchen secured his first prize, a 20-gun French privateer which he outran in a gale. In 1712 and 1713, Balchen was in the Mediterranean under Sir John Jennings and returned home in 1713 for a period of unemployment on shore. With the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1715, Balchen was returned to sea in the 40-gun frigate HMS Diamond, which he used in the suppression of piracy in the West Indies until 1716. The same year, he received the shore position commanding the guardship HMS Orford in the Medway.
In May 1719, Balchen was given command of the 70-gun HMS Monmouth under Sir John Norris, and served in the Baltic Sea and North Seas until 1722. In 1722, Balchen took over the guardship HMS Ipswich at Spithead and, in 1726, returned to the Monmouth for further service in the Baltic under Norris and Charles Wager. In 1727 Balchen was part of a mission to resupply besieged Gibraltar, although, by the time the fleet arrived, the siege had been broken. In 1728, Balchen received promotion to Rear-Admiral. In 1731, after a period in command of the 60-gun HMS Dreadnought, Balchen took over the 80-gun HMS Princess Amelia and commanded her in support of a Spanish landing at Livorno. Balchen returned in December and, in 1734, was promoted to Vice-Admiral, spending the next five years at his estates in England.
"We have Nobody spoke of Now but Mr. Virnon; he has all the Glory, and success pursues him. The West Indie people will be so Rich there wont be Roome for them to purchase Lands; whilst I am forced to drudge from place to place for Nothing." Sic
Balchen's fleet was successful in driving off the French, who retired in the face of his superior fleet without firing a shot, and Hardy's convoy was escorted safely to Gibraltar. On the way to the Portuguese Coast, Balchen finally made his fortune in prize money, capturing six heavily laden French West Indiamen. On his return journey however, the fleet was sailing through the Western Approaches in early October when it was hit by a violent storm. Scattered across the Channel, they one by one returned to England in a battered and leaking condition until, a few days later, only HMS Victory was missing. Victory, Balchen's flagship, was, at the time, one of the largest ships in the world, holding a broadside of 100 guns. She was also very new, having been completed less than seven years before.
Frigates were dispatched across the English Channel to search for the missing battleship, which was last seen on the horizon on 4 October. Captain Thomas Grenville of the frigate HMS Falkland landed at Guernsey in the Channel Islands to reprovision and there heard from locals that wreckage and part of a topmast had washed up on the island's shores. Further investigation proved that the wreckage had indeed come from the Victory, which was believed to have run into the Casquets, a group of rocks nearby. Other wreckage was washed up on Jersey and Alderney, whose inhabitants had heard distress guns the night before the wreck but were unable to provide aid in the severe storm. Of the 1,150 sailors aboard Victory, none was ever recovered. In 2008, the wreck of Victory was found approximately 100 km (62 miles) from the Casquets.
A large memorial to Balchen's memory was raised in Westminster Abbey, sculpted by Peter ScheemakersDictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by rupert Gunnis where it can still be seen. The relief commemorates Balchen's career, that of his son and also the men lost on the Victory in 1744 who have no other permanent memorial. Balchen is remembered in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "a hard-working, thoroughgoing professional, recognised for his readiness to accept duty whenever and wherever required."
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