Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Dilkes (c.1667 – 12 December 1707) was an officer in the Royal Navy. Early life Thomas Dilkes was born in around 1667 to a junior branch of the Dilke family of Maxstoke Castle in Warwickshire. He was also related to Sir William Coventry. He joined the Royal Navy in 1683, and served as a Volunteer-per-order until 1686. He was appointed second lieutenant of the on 29 April 1687, and of the on 3 September 1688. On 8 April 1689 he was given his first command: the fire ship . Captain In 1692 he achieved post rank with command of the fourth-rate , and commanded this vessel in the battles of Barfleur and La Hogue. In October of that year he captured two privateers in combination with the , then captured a large privateer on his own in December. In July 1693 he was given command of the , followed by the in 1694, the in 1695, and the in 1696. In 1696, he was part of an ill-fated squadron that sailed to the West Indies under the command of Vice-admiral John Nevell. When Nevell, his second in command George Mees, and almost all the other captains died of yellow fever, Dilkes succeeded to the command and brought the squadron home in October 1697. In the peace which followed the Treaty of Ryswick he held a succession of short-lived commands, and was seriously injured in a shipwreck on the Irish coast in 1699. Tha accession of Queen Anne and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1702 brought Dilkes a new command: the 80-gun . He took part in the expedition to Cadiz under Sir George Rooke, who transferred his flag to that ship during the battle of Vigo Bay, deeming his flagship the too large to enter the harbour. Admiral On 1 March 1703, Dilkes was promoted to be rear-admiral of the white, hoisting his flag aboard the . In July of that year he led his fleet in an operation described by William Laird Clowes as "one of the most brilliant of the early part of the war." Sailing from Spithead on 22 July, he learned of a large number of merchantmen heading for Granville. Arriving outside that town on , he found forty-five merchant vessels guarded by three small men-of-war. Though the French withdrew to waters too shallow for the larger English