Portrait.

By family tradition, Louis's great-grandfather was an illegitimate son of Louis XIV of France. His own father was a schoolmaster and he entered the Navy in 1769. From 1771, when he moved into the frigate 'Southampton' he gained the lasting patronage of her captain (later Admiral) John Macbride and fully justified it by a distinguished early career which included, as a lieutenant, action at the Battles of Ushant 1778 and in Rodney's 'Moonlight battle' off Cape St Vincent in 1780, after which he was prizemaster in two captured Spanish ships - one of which he managed to get to Gibraltar and later home despite its shattered condition. He was promoted captain in 1783 and his last service with Macbride was as his flag-captain in the 'Minotaur' in 1794. In 1798, still in that ship, he was one of Nelson's 'band of brothers' at the Battle of the Nile, fighting next in line to him. After further Mediterranean and other service, he was promoted Rear-Admiral of the Blue in 1804 and returned there in the 'Canopus' just in time to join Nelson's chase of the French to the West Indies in 1805, but missed Trafalgar through being sent with other ships to collect water from Gibraltar. In February 1806, still in 'Canopus', he was second-in-command to Sir John Duckworth at the Battle of San Domingo - for which he received a second Naval gold medal to add to that for the Nile, and was made a baronet - and played a leading role in Duckworth's Dardanelles expedition of early 1807. On the squadron's return to Alexandria, Louis was left there in command of it but in May 1807 died there aged 49, of an unidentified illness thought to have been contracted in the West Indies the previous year: he was buried on Manoel Island, Malta, in June. Though now little-remembered, Louis was a successful and very well-regarded officer (not least by Nelson), an 1806 petition by sailors who had served under him calling him ‘our most noble Admiral … all that was good and just’. Louis's eldest son and heir to his baronetcy, John Louis, went to sea with him in 1793 and was also an admiral when he died in 1863: his third son (of four) fought in the Royal Horse Artillery at Waterloo in 1815.

The original of this portrait was almost certainly posthumous and based on a miniature by N. Freese engraved in the 'Naval Chronicle' in 1806 (see PAD3108). The artist, Richard Livesay (1750?-c.1823), was a pupil of Benjamin West who later became drawing master at the Royal Naval Academy, Portsmouth. He painted domestic subjects, portraits, miniatures, and some naval subjects which were published as prints, some in Portsmouth, to capitalize on recent events (as likely in this case, the event being Louis's death). The only differences from Freese are a slightly fuller face and curlier hairstyle, the addition of decorations, the background and the poorly introduced left forearm of the sitter holding a dirk, with his hat under the arm. One of the decorations may be a Naval gold medal but the others are uncertain, though Louis did hold the Neapolitan order of St Ferdinand and of Merit and at least one other foreign order, though the abbreviations on both this and the Freese print still require clarification. MNT0008 is a miniature probably copied from this print. [See ODNB for Louis. PvdM 9.10]