Penhallow Cuming

Posted by Albert Parker on Saturday 25th of July 2020 03:14

"Dismissed from the Navy" is a rather bare entry! Cuming had two successive women on board _Blandford_ before he was tried for cruelty or oppression because he flogged seamen who took more than 5 minutes to come to their quarters when all hands were called. 2 years earlier, he had flogged the signers of a round robin who had complained about him. The same court that dismissed him also dismissed his 1st lt., Smauel Gribble. He seems to have been a thoroughly bad officer. (Rodger, _Wooden World_, 77, 212, 214, 235, 282)
I'm familiar with Cuming because he was a passenger on _Warwick_ when she and _Lark_ were beaten off by _Glorioso_ (July 1747), one of 3 lieutenants recommended to Rear-Adm. Charles Knowles, designated commander-in-chief at Jamaica. The first of them to be promoted was Edward Hughes, who was appointed captain of _Lark_ after a court-martial did not sentence that officer (John Crookshanks) to be shot for running away from _Glorioso_ but did cashier him. The appointment gave Hughes the seniority to be a vice-admiral in 1782–83 and commander-in-chief in the Indian Ocean against acting Squadron-Commander Pierre André de Suffren de St. Tropez. The third lieutenant in the group was Matthew Moore, also promoted by Knowles to commander. I don't know WHO sent these men out to Knowles, but it was obviously someone he felt he owed some favors or should accommodate. After the incident with _Glorioso_, Moore wrote directly to one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, Lord Vere Beauclerk; perhaps he was the patron for all three of them. Like Cuming, Moore was not promoted to captain until the next war, and never made it to flag rank, even "without distinction of squadron," dying in 1787 after not having any active service in the "American War."