Interesting comment Aposine, one that made me do a little bit of research on this. I found this:
Hard a starboard is order so to place the tiller as to bring the rudder over to the port-side of the stern-post, whichever way the tiller leads.
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So ‘hard a starboard’ would mean ‘put your helm or tiller hard a starboard’. This would turn the ship’s rudder to port and so the ship would turn to port.
This all changed with the Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act, 1932, which came into effect on 1 January 1933.
This brought the British Merchant Navy into line with the rest of the world, so that from that date all steering orders were given as wheel orders, and ‘hard a starboard’ did in fact mean ‘turn right’. (ref: http://www.kgbanswers.com/what-do-the-terms-hard-to-port-and-hard-to-starboard-mean/7498015)
So for simplicity sake, we will go with the modern definition of “hard to port” meaning to turn the ship to the left, and “hard to starboard” meaning to turn the ship to the right.