Michael Seymour

From Freepedia

Sir Michael Seymour (1802 - 1887) was a British admiral and the uncle of Sir Edward Hobart Seymour, also an admiral.

Michael Seymour entered the Royal Navy in 1813, and in 1854 he served under Sir Charles Napier in the Baltic during the Crimean War, in the capacity of Captain of the Fleet. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral that same year and, when the Baltic campaign was resumed in 1855 under Admiral the Hon. Richard Saunders Dundas, Seymour was second in command, flying his flag in HMS Exmouth.

On 19 February 1856 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the East Indies station, which included the coast of China, and conducted the operations arising out of the affair of the lorcha Arrow (Second Opium War); he destroyed the Chinese fleet in June 1857, took Canton in December, and in 1858 he captured the forts on the Pei-ho, compelling the Chinese government to consent to the Treaties of Tianjin. He sat as Member of Parliament for Devonport from 1859 to 1863. In 1864 he was promoted to the rank of admiral.