Early Career
Hennah was born in January 1768 and baptised on the 7th, the son of Richard Hennah, the vicar of St Austell in Cornwall. He joined the navy as a teenager, following his Cornish hero, the circumnavigator Samuel Wallis into service. Hennah became a lieutenant in the general promotion at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in 1793, but afterwards had little opportunity for distinction until 1800, when he participated in a boat raid on the Morbihan river in which the French corvette Réloaise was burnt. He reportedly acquitted himself "with great judgement and gallantry", under the command of Lieutenant John Pilfold, another lieutenant who was to command a ship at Trafalgar.
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