Sir Thomas Staines, Captain in the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, Knight Commander of the Bath

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

, and of the Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit, and Knight of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent

Order of the Crescent

The Imperial Order of the Crescent was a chivalric order of the Ottoman Empire. It was instituted in 1799 by Sultan Selim III when he wished to reward Horatio Nelson, an Anglican Christian, for his victory at the Battle of the Nile...

.

From March 1807 through November 1809, he was captain of HMS Cyane

HMS Cyane (1806)

HMS Cyane was a Royal Navy Banterer-class sixth-rate post ship of nominally 22 guns, built in 1806 at Topsham, near Exeter, England. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Columbine but renamed Cyane on 6 December of that year...

. It was his service on Cyane, particularly at Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 between 25 and 27 June 1809, which cost him his arm, that led to his knighthood and the Order of Saint Ferdinand.

On 17 September 1814 HMS Briton  under his command, along with HMS Tagus, were the first British ships to visit the Pitcairn Islands

Pitcairn Islands

The Pitcairn Islands , officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific...

 after the Bounty

HMS Bounty

HMS Bounty , famous as the scene of the Mutiny on the Bounty on 28 April 1789, was originally a three-masted cargo ship, the Bethia, purchased by the British Admiralty, then modified and commissioned as His Majesty's Armed Vessel the...

 and discover the fate of the mutineers

Mutiny on the Bounty

The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...

 – this was six and half years after the American ship Topaz

Mayhew Folger

Mayhew Folger was an American whaler who captained the sealing ship Topaz that rediscovered the Pitcairn Islands in 1808. Only one of 's mutineers was still alive: Alexander Smith, whose alias was John Adams....

rediscovered Pitcairn. However, Staines was unaware of that discovery.