File:HMS Duke.jpg

English: The English ship Duke 90 Guns ca.1750 Drawing from an album which has a bookplate of the Bishop of Columbia. The arms on the bookplate are the See of Columbia but the connection between the See of Columbia and Sir John Bentley (possible commander of the Duke). The drawing is inscribed faintly verso "Duke 90 guns / No. 10" and in darker pencil, partly over the fainter inscription, is "Commanded by Sir John Bentley / in the year 1745 & 1746 / of which this drawing is a correct portrait / made at the time of Sir John's command / by his Clerk". Annotations by Commander C.G. Pitcairn Jones in his copy of 'The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815' gives 1746 as the year in which Bentley commanded the Duke. There is no confirmation of this in Mss. in the National Maritime Museum, but it is possible that Bentley may have commanded the Duke between 09/11/1746 and 25/05/1747 when there is a gap in the evidence in the Museum's logs. Court materials resulting from Matthews's Action off Toulon in February 1744 involved Bentley, particularly from 25/09/1745 to 09/10/1745 when Burrish was tried. All the trials were concluded by 22/10/1746. It seems likely that Bentley may have commanded the Duke in late 1746.