George Johnstone (1730-24 May 1787) was a Commodore of Great Britain's Royal Navy during the War of the Austrian Succession, Seven Years' War, and American Revolutionary War, and the Rockinghamite Whig MP for Cockermouth from 1768 to 1775, Appleby from 1774 to 1780, Lostwithiel from 1780 to 1784, and Ilchester from 1786 to 1787.
Biography[]
Born into a gentry family of Dumfries, Scotland, in 1730, he embarked on a naval career. At the age of fourteen, he enlisted in the Royal Navy of Great Britain and saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). Johnstone's career was made during the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), where he fought small cruisers against enemy privateers and merchant vessels. He was praised for bravery and censured for disobedience, but at the end of the war he was made the Governor of West Florida, which he held until 1767. After clashing with political masters, he was sent home.
During the American Revolutionary War, his career was revived, given command of a squadron of vessels sent to secure the Cape Colony from the United Provinces in 1780. However, he met Baili de Suffren's French fleet at the Battle of Porto Praya and he was forced to repair his ships, while the French warned the Dutch of the British attack. However, at the 1781 Battle of Saldanha Bay, he destroyed a Dutch merchant fleet. After the war's end in 1783, he became a director of the East India Company but illness forced him to resign. He died of Hodgkin's Disease in 1787.