Captain Sir William Hoste, 1st Baronet KCB RN (26 August 1780 – 6 December 1828) was a Royal Navy captain. Best known as one of Lord Nelson's protégés, Hoste was one of the great frigate captains of the Napoleonic wars, taking part in six major actions including the capture of the heavily fortified port of Kotor. He was, however, absent from Trafalgar having been sent with gifts to the Dey of Algiers.
Nelson accepted Hoste to join him as a captain's servant on HMS Agamemnon, which he boarded at Portsmouth at the end of April 1793. The ship joined the Mediterranean Fleet under Lord Hood, and it was in the Mediterranean and Adriatic that Hoste saw most of his naval service. Extracts from Nelson's letters to his wife mention Hoste frequently; for example: 'without exception one of the finest boys I ever met with' and 'his gallantry never can be exceeded, and each day rivets him stronger to my heart'. Another captain's servant on Agamemnon was Josiah Nisbet, Nelson's stepson, but the letters suggest that Hoste quickly became a favourite and that Josiah compared badly with him in many respects. Hoste was promoted to midshipman by Nelson on 1 February 1794 and served with him during the blockade of and subsequent assault on Corsica on 7 February.
Hoste continued in command of the Mutine for the next three years, campaigning in Italy under Nelson, where in the autumn of 1799, he took part in the capture of Rome. He later served under Lord Keith, who knew little of him and his career appeared to have stalled until, possibly at Nelson's prompting, he was promoted post-captain by Lord St Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty, in January 1802.
At this time, Hoste was in Alexandria, where he contracted malaria and then a lung infection, which were to have a lasting effect on his health. He convalesced with Lord and Lady Elgin in Athens, where he began an education in classical antiquity, completed following his appointment to the frigate HMS Greyhound in Florence, when his ship was cruising on the Italian coast.
Hoste served almost continuously throughout the Peace of Amiens, returning to England briefly in April 1803 before being given command of HMS Eurydice in October.
Nelson summoned him to Cadiz in September 1805 and gave him command of the 32-gun frigate HMS Amphion. Sent on a diplomatic mission to Algiers, he missed the Battle of Trafalgar by a matter of days, and only learned of Nelson's death on his return in November. He wrote to his father – "Not to have been in it is enough to make one mad, but to have lost such a friend besides is really sufficient to almost overwhelm me" (Hoste's letters).
A number of successes while engaged on active service in the Mediterranean over the following 18 months brought Hoste to the attention of Lord Collingwood, who sent him into the Adriatic Sea. Here he single-handedly conducted an aggressive campaign against enemy shipping and coastal installations, bringing coastal trade with the enemy more or less to a halt. By the end of 1809, Hoste and his crew had captured or sunk over 200 enemy ships.
His endeavours were rewarded with command, as commodore, of a small detachment of frigates, comprising HMS Amphion, HMS Active (36 guns), HMS Volage (22 guns) and HMS Cerberus (32 guns), operations continued and by establishing a base at Lissa, now known as Vis, Hoste was able to dominate the Adriatic with just four ships. In March and April 1810 alone, they took or destroyed 46 vessels.
The French and their allies became so frustrated by the disruption to their shipping that a Franco-Venetian squadron, under the command of an aggressive frigate commander named Bernard Dubourdieu, was dispatched and on 13 March 1811 they attacked Hoste's small force in what became known as the Battle of Lissa.
Hoste's health, compromised by his malaria and earlier lung infection, worsened and he was forced to return to England. In 1814, he was made a baronet, and in 1815 he was knighted KCB. In 1825, he was appointed to the royal yacht Royal Sovereign.
In January 1828, he developed a cold which affected his already weakened lungs, and he died of tuberculosis in London on 6 December 1828. He was buried in St John's Chapel, London. There is a memorial to him at St Paul's Cathedral in London.