Fanning, Nathaniel (1755-1805)

Connecticut naval officer.

Prize master of the Angelica. Captured and committed to Mill Prison; exchanged (July 1779). Midshipman of the Bonhomme Richard. Commander of the French cutter Eclipse (1781); lost his command when his lieutenant plundered French property from a Danish ship.

Commander of the privateer Ranger (1782). Captured by the British a second time; escaped. Published Narrative of the Adventures of an American Navy Officer (New York, 1806), a memoir critical of John Paul Jones.