Robert Spencer was a captain in the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. He and Lt. John Peddie engaged in scouted the area of Bayou Bienvenu, and determined it to be a suitable point for landing British troops. This scouting included disguising themselves as civilians, and hiring a pirogue, which carried them to the plantation of Jacques Villeré, which they decided would be the best landing point.[1] Spencer was a son of the Earl Spencer. Aside from this, nothing about Spencer's life is readily available.
On December 21, 1814, Lt. John Peddie was debriefed by Admiral Alexander Cochrane as to what he and Captain John Spencer found on their explorations. Peddie also reported on intelligence gathered from a fisherman named Duclos, who believed that U.S. general Andrew Jackson had amassed some fifteen thousand men at New Orleans. General Robert Ross, who was present in an advisory capacity, disputed that number, believing the inexperienced Duclos, a civilian, had inadvertently inflated those numbers.[2]
↑See, e.g., The Battle of New Orleans by Robert V. Remini