Nelson and Hardy – forging a partnership We have encountered HMS Blanche before, in her furious duel in January 1795, in the middle years of the Revolutionary War between Britain and France. In the process she captured the French frigate Pique, off Guadeloupe (Click here to read this earlier blog). Blanche, a 32-gun frigate, had still four years of [...]
The Royal Navy vs. the Riff Pirates 1848-51 The Barbary pirates of North Africa were a scourge to maritime trade for many centuries. It was only in the nineteenth century that major naval and military campaigns – most notably the US Navy’s and Marine Corps’ intervention on “the Shores of Tripoli”, the Anglo-Dutch action [...]
The Royal Navy Exhibition of 1891 The Royal Navy was to attain enormous popularity in Britain in the 19th Century, especially in its last decades. It was seen to be at the cutting edge of the technology of the time and to be the guarantor of imperial greatness against the machinations of the French, Russians [...]
5 Most Popular Dawlish Chronicles Blogs of 2021 2021 saw sustained activities on the Antoine Vanner Writing-Front, Covid-19 notwithstanding. The tenth book of the Dawlish Chronicles, Britannia’s Guile, was published in December (click here for details) and blog articles continued to appear regularly. These last relate to all aspects of naval and maritime history in the [...]
The Bayonnaise and HMS Ambuscade action, 1798 On my blog I have dealt several times with single-ship actions during the Age of Fighting Sail, the protagonists being mainly British and French, though the Americans do figure in 1812-15. In most cases British victory over the French seems to have been all but pre-ordained, for the Royal Navy had reached [...]
HMS Indefatigable vs. Droits de l’Homme Desperate action in storm and darkness 1797 Besides their few major fleet actions, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw many vicious encounters between small numbers of French and British ships which have since provided the inspiration for much naval fiction. One of the most ferocious of these battles was fought [...]
The Crimean War’s North Pacific Theatre: Petropavlovsk, August 1854 The most common image of the Crimean War (1854 – 56) is of Britain’s Light Brigade charging to death and glory against Russian guns at Balaclava. Almost equally well known are the epics of the ”Thin Red Line” and of the Storming of the Redan, [...]
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 3 Thomas Luny (1759–1837) In this article I want to tell of a hero, Thomas Luny, who is known as a great naval painter - but other details of whose life are less familiar. Two sorts of courage move me. The first is the sort of [...]
Caulk’s Field: the Death of Captain Sir Peter Parker, 1814 The British attack on Baltimore in mid-September 1814, and the heroic defence of Fort McHenry, is one of the most widely remembered incidents of the War of 1812, since it was to inspire the writing of the American national anthem. It was however preceded [...]
HMS Flamborough and HMS Bideford - Outgunned but Defiant, 1760 The term “post ship” was applied in the Royal Navy to Sixth-Rate vessels, and referred to the fact that they were the smallest ships that could be commanded by a post-captain. They were in effect miniature frigates, ship-rigged, some hundred feet long and around [...]
