John Deane (1679-1761) was an English sailor, mercenary and spy. His first command was wrecked on an island off the New England coast in the winter of 1710. Deane and his crew were marooned on the island for 24 days, during which they ate part of the corpse of the ship's carpenter. He enlisted in the Russian navy in 1712, and by 1719 had risen to the rank of captain, and had captured 20 ships. In 1719 he was court-martialled for allegedly receiving bribes, and demoted to lieutenant. Expelled from Russia in 1720 he returned to Britain, where he wrote an account of Peter the Great's navy. In 1725 Deane was appointed commercial consul at St. Petersburg, with the intention that he gather intelligence, particulary on Jacobite émigrés and sympathisers. He was expelled after 16 days, but had already made contact with a Jacobite courier, who agreed to copy secret correspondence and hand the copies over to Deane in Amsterdam. In 1726 Deane served as a political advisor in a British naval squadron assigned to observe the Russian Baltic fleet; the squadron anchored off Nargen Island outside the port of Reval. Deane made unsuccesful attempts to recruit agents. In April 1728 Deane went to Ostend as commercial consul, with the assignment to watch over the winding-up of the Ostend East India Company. He remained here until 1736, when he retired to his home in Wilford.