The Great Age of Fighting Sail
The articles below relate to naval and other history in the period, between 1700 and the early 1830s. They are arranged in chronological order and will be added to regularly. Suggestions for other articles will be welcome – see the “Contact” bar above.
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 1
The Age of Fighting Sail was also a time of superb naval art that commemorated the sea-battles of the time. One of the most impressive of the artists involved was Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, a Frenchman of Polish extraction who made his career in Britain, not only in painting but in innovative theatre design.
Click here to read about this remarkable man
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 2
The image we have today of Britain’s seaman in the Age of Fighting Sail has been to a great extent shaped by the engravings and prints of that time. These were affordable by all but the poorest homes. For residents of inland towns and rural areas, some of whom may have gone through life without seeing the sea or a seaman, these prints provided the image of “Rule Britannia” incarnate. This article shows prints that give a very evocative impression of that heroic age and of the men – and women – who made it possible.
Click here to see these prints
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 3
Thomas Luny (1759–1837) was not just a great maritime artist, but also a man of indomitable and inspiring fortitude. His art was based on experience at sea and his relationship with a naval officer, Captain George Tobin, had uncanny similarities with that between Patrick O’Brian’s Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey.
Click here to read more about this splendid artist and admirable man
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 4
Many of the artists of the 18th Century who left us the paintings that have formed our mental images of warfare in that era, far from being studio-bound, had direct experience of life at sea. One such man was Richard Paton (1717-1791). His paintings remain as a delight to all fascinated by the Age of Fighting Sail – and, if legend is for once correct, then it is pleasing to think of us owing his entire oeuvre to a Royal Naval officer who took pity on a poor boy begging on the street close to the Tower of London.
Click here to read about Paton and his work
Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 5
In earlier articles in this occasional series, we have met artists – such as Thomas Luny and Richard Paton – who had experience of life at sea before (or sometimes during) their careers as artists. One of the most renowned painters of the period, Nicholas Pocock (1740-1825), had an even greater qualification for he was qualified as a ship’s master and had served as such for many years and was present at a major fleet-action in 1794, which added even more realism to his paintings. In his lifetime he was probably the most admired of all naval artists.
Click here for a brief introduction to Pocock’s work
From Cabin Boy to Admiral: Charles Wager
In the 1680s a cabin boy on an unarmed merchant ship under attack by a French privateer took control and led her crew to success in an action that would sound far-fetched in fiction. And this was to be only the first step in Charles Wager’s meteoric career.
Click here to read about Wager’s first step towards high command
The Capture of Gibraltar and Battle of Malaga 1704
Gaining possession of Gibraltar, and the Battle of Malaga were to be not only key events of the War of Spanish Succession (1701-14) but one which was to have major strategic significance for Britain in all subsequent wars and right up to our own day…
Click here to read about these two operations…
An epic stand against French oared-galleys in British Waters – 1707
When one thinks of battles involving oared galleys one thinks automatically of actions in the Mediterranean. The galley’s day as a fighting vessel – a long one, stretching back two thousand years – ended in the early eighteenth century and as such they do not figure in most accounts of sea warfare of that era, as “Fighting Sail” reached its apogee of efficiency. I was therefore all the more surprised to come on an account of an epic last-stand by a single British frigate against French galleys in the Thames estuary in 1707.
Click here to read about this amazing action
HMS Fowey 1710 – Officers are not always Gentlemen!
In 1710 a petition to Queen Anne from a Swedish merchant cast a horrifying light on the way in which crews of ship detained by the Royal Navy could be treated. The captain of the frigate HMS Fowey authorised brutal measures which a Victorian writer was later to classify as “ruffianism”. The incident gives a sobering insight to the realities of command at sea in that era.
Click here to read about this unedifying case
Naval Chaplains in the Age of Fighting Sail
Naval chaplains were expected not only to conduct divine service and funerals, and to take their places in the cockpit during battle to assist the surgeon, but also to act as schoolmasters for the midshipmen. The writings of a satirical journalist of the 18th Century hint however that not all chaplains were godly or pious…
A Forgotten Hero of Exploration: Vitus Bering (1681-1741)
Though he gave his name to the strait that separates Asia and America, Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741) is largely unknown outside Russia. His achievement in the face of almost insuperable odds make him however one of the true giants of exploration.
Click here to read about Bering’s voyages and tragic end
HMS Pulteney and the Spanish Xebecs 1743
A very unusual battle occurred off Gibraltar I 1743 when a becalmed British warship was to be attacked by two Spanish xebecs propelled by oars. What followed was the type of incident that was to inspire so much naval fiction in later years.
Click here to read about HMS Pulteney’s action
An Unequal Duel: Trader vs. Privateer off the Dutch Coast, 1744
The story of war against maritime trade in the Age of Fighting Sail is usually told, whether in fact or in fiction, from the viewpoint of the naval commerce-raider intent on prize money. One finds few accounts which view these contests from the side of the victims. I was therefore fascinated by stumbling recently on an account of a furious battle between a civilian trader – armed, as was essential at the time – and a French privateer in 1744, during the War of Austrian Succession. The story is worth sharing.
Click here to read about this desperate encounter
“The Royal Family” at war, 1747
In 1747, at the height of the War of Austrian Succession, the departure of a silver-laden Spanish warship from the Americas, the Glorioso, was to trigger a series of brutal naval engagements reminiscent of the pursuit of the Bismarck, two centuries later. She was to be engaged both by the Royal Navy and by British privateers and it is the performance of the flotilla of the latter, nicknamed “The Royal Family”, which was the most remarkable.
Click here to read about these amazing actions
The loss of HMS Namur, 1749
Extracts from a survivor’s first-hand account convey the desperate measures and the heroism involved in efforts to save the ship-of-the line HMS Namur when she was lost off the east coast of India in 1749 – a disaster that cost over 500 lives. Even now, across almost three centuries, this unvarnished personal memoir still had the power to move.
Click here to read about this tragedy
Captain Death of the Privateer Terrible, 1756
In 1756, the improbably-named privateer Captain Death (a family name usually spelt De’Ath today), in his ship Terrible, fought a murderous battle with a larger French warship, the Vengeance, off St. Malo. This article quotes from the account of a survivor of the action.
Click here to read about Terrible vs. Vengeance
HMS Buckingham in furious action, 1758
When cruising in the West Indies in 1758 the 3rd Rate line-of-battle ship HMS Buckingham, accompanied by the sloop HMS Weazel, fought a furious action with a slightly larger French counterpart and two large frigates. This article draws on the post-action report by HMS Buckingham’s captain, Richard Tyrell, a man who wielded his pen with as much verve as he fought his ship with grim determination. (And he thought his French opponents’ behaviour as “inhuman, ungenerous, and barbarous”)
Click here to read about this spectacular encounter
Unequal Duel, 1758: HMS Monmouth vs. Foudroyant
A British captain who felt that his honour had been besmirched by association with the action that led to the execution by firing squad of Admiral George Byng in 1757 was determined to clear his name at whatever cost. The following year he was to be offered a personally valuable opportunity to do so when he encountered the French flagship involved in the earlier action. And this time he was determined to do or die despite the fact that the odds were stacked massively against him. What followed was an epic duel…
Click here to read about this remarkable action
1759 – “The Year of Victories”
The Seven Years War (1756-63) was in effect the First World War, fought in Europe, the Americas, India and the Far East. From it Britain emerged as a Global Superpower and many of its outcomes still live with us even now. One year of the war – 1759 – was however to see a series of British victories by land and by sea that has never been equalled. And it also gave Britain the hit pop-song of the 18th Century and which lives on as a naval march today…
Click here to read about this “Wonderful Year”
Honour insulted, Disobedience triumphs – Guadeloupe 1759
The incident at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 when Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and stated “I really do not see the signal!” is the most famous case of a Royal Navy officer disobeying orders and thereby achieving victory. A less well-known case occurred some four decades earlier in the West Indies.
Sixth-Rates on the offensive, 1760
Given competent and determined commanders, and bloody-minded crews, even the smallest British warships could give a very good account of themselves in the Age of Fighting Sail. One of the most notable instances of this occurred during the Seven Years War, when two “sixth rates”, HMS Bideford and HMS Flamborough, each of 20 guns, fought a spectacular action against two larger and more powerful French frigates. The deciding factor proved not to be firepower but morale.
Click here to read about this action
The HMS Bellona and Courageux action 1761
Devotees of naval history and fiction will know that the “74”, the so-called Third-Rate ships of the line, were the backbone of the fleets of the major European powers in the period 1756-1815. The original concept, dating from the 1740s, was French, but it was to be adopted whole-heartedly by the Royal Navy. HMS Bellona (1760) was to be the prototype for a class of more than 40 British ships that were to serve for more than five decades. And Bellona herself, as befitted a ship named after the Roman Goddess of War, was to have a very spectacular blooding in 1761…
Click here to read about this spectacular action…
The sinking of the slave ship Phoenix, 1762
One well-known image above all symbolises the evil of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Published by British abolitionists in 1788, it illustrated the “Tight Packing” on a typical slave ship which was in full compliance with the standards set by law for accommodation of slaves on shipboard. The horror of such transport reached its peak in bad weather, as illustrated by the loss of the slave-ship Phoenix in 1762. The story, a terrible one, still has the power to outrage and to move.
Click here to read about this crime
Slave Revolt at Sea, 1769
In the late 18th Century, running in parallel with the spectacular – and often glamorous – “Age of Fighting Sail” was the sordid, brutal, shaming fact of the slave trade. On occasion, slaves did however manage to revolt and take over control of ships, usually only temporarily. One such slave revolt occurred in 1769 on the inappropriately named slave ship “Delight”.
Click here to read of this brutal and tragic event
Day’s Submarine, 1774
The development of the submarine was to demand courage as well as ingenuity and it was to be punctuated by a series of fatal accidents. The first of these was to be as early as 1774, when a ship’s carpenter called John Day undertook a deep test dive in Plymouth Sound…
Click here to read about this doomed invention
First Blood 1778: Belle Poule and HMS Arethusa
The first battle between French and British forces during the American War of Independence was to be a French triumph and one that aroused enormous enthusiasm in at the time. It was also to inspire a bizarre and spectacular coiffure for ladies at the French Court!
Click here to read more about this action
American Naval Hero – Silas Talbot
Little known today, Silas Talbot was one of the first captains commissioned into the newly constituted US Navy in 1794. He supervised the construction of USS President and was the second captain of the frigate USS Constitution – a ship that is still in proud service. Wounded thirteen times and carrying five bullets in his body, Talbot had had a spectacular career as both a soldier and a privateer, and later was to be a politician also.
Click here for a brief sketch of Silas Talbot’s life
Day’s Submarine, 1774
The development of the submarine was to demand courage as well as ingenuity and it was to be punctuated by a series of fatal accidents. One of the first of these was to be as early as 1774, when a ship’s carpenter called John Day undertook a deep test dive in Plymouth Sound. The tragedy encouraged a real-life predecessor of the yet-to-be-created fictional character Victor Frankenstein to test his theories.
Click here to read about this doomed experiment
The Battle of Ushant 1778, its farcical aftermath, the guillotine and France’s “Citizen King”
France’s entry into the American War of Independence was to prove a critical factor in assuring the survival of the United States. The first major Anglo-French engagement of this war was to arouse bitter controversy on one side and farce on the other. And one of the players involved was to turn his back on his royal heritage and yet found a dynasty…
The “Great Siege” of Gibraltar – and Heated Shot
Accounts of naval operations in the “Age of Fighting Sail” make frequent references to the use of “heated shot” – cannonballs warmed to white heat in furnaces before firing. When used against wooden ships such shot was capable of setting their targets ablaze. They were to play a crucial role in the “Great Siege” of Gibraltar (1779-83) which was to prove the longest in British history.
Click here to read about this epic contest…
The Most Ferocious Frigate Action Ever? HMS Quebec vs Surveillante, 1779
Single-ship actions, usually between frigates, are remembered as some of the most dramatic actions of the age of fighting sail and they figure as central elements in the naval fiction of Forrester, Pope, O’Brian, Bond and others. Perhaps the most dramatic of all single-frigate action was fought not during the Revolutionary or Napoleonic Wars, but when the French were locked in conflict with Britain during the American War of Independence. ..
Click here to read about this desperate duel
Privateer in action: James Borrowdale and the Ellen 1780
Privateers receive little attention in accounts of naval warfare right up to the time when the practice was banned by international Paris Declaration of 1856. During the years 1700 to 1815 they were responsible for the capture of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of merchant ships, many of them small coastal traders. These actions that are almost universally forgotten today. One such ship, the Ellen, captained by a James Borrowdale, was to demonstrate in 1780 just how effective such a ship could be.
Click here to read about this remarkable action
HMS Flora 1780: the Carronade’s arrival
In 1780 the “Carronade”, a short smoothbore cast iron cannon, was about to change the nature of warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail when the Royal Navy’s 36-gun frigate Flora encountered the French 36-gun frigate Nymphe…
Click here to read about this action
John Macbride – forgotten hero of the Age of Fighting Sail
John Macbride was an outstanding Royal Navy captain in the Age of Fighting Sail. His career was varied, but involved much action as well as uncommon peacetime assignments. But it was in the aftermath of the First Battle of Saint Vincent in 1780 that he, and a Spanish admiral, entered into an unusual and chivalric agreement that reflected the honour and humanity of both men. A year later he was involved in epic battles against French and Dutch privateers.
Click here for Part 1: Honour and Humanity
Click her for Part 2: The Artois Connection
Captain Trollope and the Carronades
Carronades – large-calibre, short-range cannon throwing very heavy shot – were a game-changing weapon when introduced in the 1780s. One notable British officer of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars period – Sir Henry Trollope – was to gain a reputation as “carronade crazy” and, though his career was to be a long and successful one, he is best remembered for two spectacular actions, in 1782 and 1795, in which his use of these weapons proved decisive.
Frigate Duel 1782: HMS Santa Margarita and L’Amazone
Two evenly-matched frigates, one British, one French encountered each other off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay in 1782. A French squadron of eight ships of the line were drawing close however and flight rather than fight seemed the more reasonable option for the British ship. That was not however as it worked out…
Click here to read about this furious action
The wreck of the Vrijheid, 1782
Many maritime disasters have been caused by poor ship designs, inadequate operating procedures, bad maintenance and overwhelming weather conditions. There are however – as with every type of disaster, by land and sea – cases where sheer pig-headed stupidity is the major factor. One such case, which cost over 450 lives, occurred in 1782, when a Dutch troopship ran into a storm off the coast of Kent.
Click here to read of this largely avoidable tragedy
HMS Hector 1782 – an epic of leadership and survival
The survival of 200 men from a battle and hurricane-battered ship of the line in 1782 was due to the outstanding leadership and professional competence of a 20-year old officer, Lieutenant Henry Inman (1762 –1809), who was later to be a noted frigate commander.
Click here to read this epic story of survival against the odds
HMS Mediator at odds of Five to One, 1782
In the closing months of the American War of Independence, an out-gunned British warship engaged an enemy force at odds of five to one. It proved to be one of the most remarkable actions of the period – and had an unlikely link to Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro!
Click here to read about this unequal contest
The loss of HMS Royal George 1782
The disaster that overcame the line-of battle ship HMS Royal George in 1782, while anchored in calm water in sight of shore, was to have as strong an impact on the contemporary public mind as the loss of the RMS Titanic was to have one hundred and thirty years later. The tragedy was all the more terrible for the fact that it had been avoidable if the simplest of precautions had been taken – and without them over 900 men and women were to die.
Click here to read about this tragedy from 1782
The Salvage of HMS Royal George, 1782 – 1844
The sinking of HMS Royal George was not however the end of the story and her salvage, which was to be completed six decades later, was to be a courageous epic in itself and would make innovative use of new diving technology.
Click here to read about this unprecedented operation
Penang – Britain’s Early Foothold in South-East Asia
In the late 18th Century a merchant- adventurer called Francis Light established Britain’s first major strategic and trading base in South East Asia at Penang, Malaysia. The original fortification is well preserved today and a visit to it brings the dramatic past to life as well as holding some surprises.
HMS Guardian 1789 – an epic battle for survival
In late 1789 the converted frigate, HMS Guardian, met disaster in atrocious conditions when en route to Australia with supplies – and convict labour – for the new colony there. This largely forgotten epic of courage and seamanship is representative of all that was admirable about the Royal Navy in this period and is well worth sharing more widely.
Privateer Action in the English Channel, 1793 and 1799
Tensions between Britain and Revolutionary France had escalated through 1792. Following the execution of the French King Louis XVI on 21st January 1793 Britain expelled the French ambassador and on 1 February France responded by declaring war on Great Britain. Within days of the declaration the crew of a British merchant ship, the Glory, was to be one of the first victims of the war at sea, and indeed at its most cruel. But the retribution was to be no less terrible… and what followed in the subsequent years was no less desperate.
Click here to read about these minor but vicious actions, largely forgotten today
Lonely Lives and Deaths – French Napoleonic Prisoners of War in Britain 1793-1815
The plight of prisoners of war during the period of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was particularly poignant. Over 100,000 of them were brought to Britain during the wars with France that raged from 1793 to 1815, with only a one-year break in 1802/03.
HMS Alexander at bay, 1794
In November 1794 Captain Richard Bligh (“of the Bounty”), commanding HMS Alexander, a Royal Navy “74” ship-of-the-line, put up a heroic but doomed resistance to five similarly sized French ships. Flushed with revolutionary zeal, the victors were to do themselves little credit in the aftermath.
Click here to read about this remarkable action
Duel in the Dark: Frigates Blanche and Pique 1795
The most dramatic actions of the Age of Fighting Sail were those which matched one frigate against another – these vessels not only being heavily armed for their size and highly manoeuvrable, but commanded by energetic young captains hungry for promotion and prize money. The night-time battle between the British frigate Blanche and the French frigate Pique in January 1795 was just such an action.
Click here to read about this ferocious action
HMS Phaeton’s ruse to escape annihilation, 1795
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw very large numbers of battles at sea between small numbers of ships, but few in which entire squadrons engaged and yet fewer fleet actions on the scale of the Nile, Camperdown or Trafalgar. On one occasion however a medium-sized Royal Navy squadron escaped from a confrontation which, due to the disparity of forces, could have ended in annihilation. That the incident avoided disaster was due to the cool head and tactical mastery of the British commander, Admiral Lord William Cornwallis.
Click here to read about this remarkable action
Rescue against all odds: Pellew and the Dutton 1796
Edward Pellew (1757 – 1833) ranks just below Nelson, and certainly with Cochrane, as one of the Royal Navy’s most intrepid commanders during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. A humane and decent man, his personal courage was legendary and although his career was studded with desperate naval actions one of his most notable feats of heroism was not to be in combat but in rescuing survivors from a wreck in appalling conditions.
Click here to read about this dramatic rescue
The loss of HMS Amphion, 1796
The name of Israel Pellew was overshadowed by that of his older brother, Edward Pellew, one of the most charismatic naval commanders of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. (See article above re the Dutton rescue). Israel Pellew was however to make the name of his own, serving with distinction at Trafalgar as captain of HMS Conqueror and achieving the rank of full Admiral. His career did however come very close to a dramatic termination in 1796 when in command of the 32-gun frigate HMS Amphion, which he had taken over the previous year.
Click here to read what happened…
HMS Southampton 1796: “Bring me out the enemy’s ship if you can”
Close blockade of the coasts of French-occupied countries may have been the single most important factor in securing Napoleon’s ultimate defeat. Other articles in this site focus on the confident aggression that was such a characteristic of Royal Navy personnel involved in blockading. In this present article we look at a superb example of what was perhaps the most difficult – and all but suicidal – action of the period, the capture of an enemy vessel anchored under the protection of powerful shore batteries.
Click here to read about this brilliant exploit
Nelson and Hardy – the forging of a partnership 1796
Captain Thomas Hardy is best remembered for his duty as Nelson’s flag captain on HMS Victory at Trafalgar, But the professional partnership between these two men – based on mutual esteem and superb competence – stretched back a decade to when Hardy was a young lieutenant. And during this time Nelson had once been forced to abandon Hardy and on another he risked defeat and capture himself to save him. But there is yet more to this fascinating story…
HMS Indefatigable vs. Droits de l’Homme 1797
The Royal Navy of the Victorian era was dominated by memories of what had been achieved in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and indeed up to the mid-19th Century the navy was still commanded by officers who had seen service in their youths under commanders such as Nelson. Read here about one of the most ferocious actions of those years.
Click here to read about this bitterly fought action
The Destruction of HMS Resistance, 1798
The British fifth-rate HMS Resistance came to a spectacular end and with high loss of life, off Sumatra in 1798, but not by enemy action. The small handful of survivors was to show remarkable courage, inventiveness and persistence in the face of appalling difficulties.
Click here to read this remarkable story
Nelson at the Nile, 1798, and the rewards of victory.
The stunning victory over the French fleet at Aboukir in 1798 was not only to doom Bonaparte’s dreams of an empire in the Middle East but it almost cost Admiral Horatio Nelson his life. The tokens of appreciation he received afterwards were not only to be worth a fortune but included also one of very great usefulness…
Click here to read the details…
Duel: HMS Espoir vs. Liguria 1798
Heavily outgunned, the small brig-of-war HMS Espoir, a prize taken from the French, was to fight a spirited action against a larger Genoese privateer, the Liguria, to save the convoy she was escorting in the Western Mediterranean. As with many such actions, training and discipline were to prove deciding factors.
Click here to read about this action
Bayonnaise versus HMS Ambuscade 1798
In most single-ship actions in the Age of Fighting Sail British victory over the French seems to have been all but pre-ordained. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise to learn not only of a French vessel capturing a British one in a single-ship action, but also that she was significantly smaller and less powerful…
Click here to read about this memorable action
Agony by ice: HMS Proserpine, 1799: Part 1
When carrying a diplomat to Prussia, the frigate HMS Proserpine ran aground in the Elbe Estuary in the winter of 1799. Enveloped by snow and battered by floating ice, she began to break up. What followed was an epic of survival. This first part of a two-part article also offers insights into how harsh winters were then in Northern Europe by comparison with today. The second part of this article will follow next week.
Click here to read about the start of the ordeal of HMS Proserpine’s crew
Agony by ice: HMS Proserpine, 1799: Part 2
The first part of this article ended with the frigate HMS Proserpine aground in the Elbe Estuary in the winter of 1799 and enveloped by ice. Her crew had reached safety on a nearby island after a gruelling trek across the ice. Desperate for provisions that the tiny island community did not have, a small party returned to the wreck – and a new battle for survival commenced. The fortitude and endurance of those involved continue to amaze and impress today.
Click here to read of the later stages of the HMS Proserpine epic
HMS Transfer: cold-blooded courage and service under four flags
Few warships can have sailed under the flags of four different nations and to have seen action each time in just eight years. This was however the distinction of a small French privateer, original built as a polacca, which was to see her most remarkable action as the Royal Navy’s brig-of-war HMS Transfer in 1799.
Click here to read about this vessel’s amazing career
The Loss of HMS Sceptre 1799
When reading about war at sea in the Age of Fighting Sail one is struck by the number of ships – and lives – that were lost without any intervention by the enemy. For all the professional seamanship of ship’s officers and crews, sailing ships were, by their very nature vulnerable, and never more so than when forced towards a lee-shore. One example – a terrible one – of such a loss was that of the third-rate ship-of-the line HMS Sceptre in at Cape Town in1799. This article tells her story.
Click here to read about this disaster
Prize Money – Frigates, Treasure and Jane Austen
In naval fiction set in the Age of Fighting Sail, prize money is rightly shown as an important driver for Royal Navy officers and crew alike. It was often dearly-won but the value could be immense, as a single action off the Spanish coast in 1799 was to demonstrate. But the men who risked their lives for prizes, as well as for defence of their nation, were not always warmly regarded as their fellow countrymen. Jane Austen – two of whose brothers were naval officers – portrayed such attitudes hilariously, and with gentle irony, in her final novel, “Persuasion”.
Click here to read about Prize Money
One of the last fireship attacks: HMS Dart & Désirée 1800
Fireships were for many centuries to be some of the most dramatic and devastating of all naval weapons, albeit they were difficult to deploy and dangerous to their crews. One of the last – if not the last – deployments of fireships by the Royal Navy was to take place in July 1800. Close inshore action against French shipping by aggressive British naval officers was to be a constant feature of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and this attack, on the heavily defended French base at Dunkirk, was to be one of the most daring. HMS Dart, an innovative sloop designed by Samuel Bentham, of small size but massive firepower, was to play the key role in capture of a much larger French ship.
Click here to read about this dramatic action
The loss of HMS Queen Charlotte, 1800
Naming ships after members of the royal family was to prove unlucky since 18 years after the loss of HMS Royal George, named after King George III, a newer ship, named HMS Queen Charlotte after the king’s wife, was to meet a no less spectacular end on March 16th 1800, despite heroic attempts at damage control.
Click here to read about this spectacular naval tragedy
The Capture of the Chevrette, 1801
“Cutting-out missions” feature frequently in naval fiction, as they often did in real life during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. These attacks were near suicidal and the story of the capture of the Chevrette in 1801 tells just how high a price could be paid for capture of so small a prize.
Click here to read about this desperate action
Privateer Action off Peru 1801
Accounts of the Age of Fighting Sail, whether factual or fictional, are noticeably sparse as regards the activities of privateers, yet they played a vital role in the wars of the period. This article tells of one outstanding example of a privateer action in 1801, off Callao, the main port of what was then the Spanish colony of Peru. This case was especially notable in that the privateer was on this occasion prepared not just to dart in and out to capture a prize, but to engage in battle with a much more powerful ship.
Click here to read of this dramatic encounter.
The Indestructible Admiral Nesbit Willoughby (1777–1849)
Wounded innumerable times, few British naval officers of the Napoleonic era survived as much – including the 1812 Retreat from Moscow – or had so many desperate adventures as Nesbit Willoughby. It was rightly said that “he seems to have possessed more lives than a cat with all the courage of a British lion.”
Click here to read about his extraordinary career – For Part 1 – For Part 2
Earning Napoleon’s admiration: HMS Grappler, 1803
In 1803 a Royal Navy brig, HMS Grappler, was sent from the Channel Islands under flag of truce to return liberated French prisoners of war to their homeland. A storm was to drive her to take shelter in rocky archipelago close to the coast. Disaster followed, and so too an instance of gallantry by Grappler’s captain which was to arouse the admiration of Napoleon himself. . .
Click here to read HMS Grappler’s story
The Los of HMS Romney, 1804
In 1804 the incompetence of two pilots was to lead to the loss of the 50-gun Royal Navy Fourth Rate HMS Romney but succour for the survivors was to come from a very unexpected course…
Click here to read of this dramatic shipwreck…
Cutting out the Dutch brig Atalante, 1804
The capture of the Dutch big of war Atalante by seamen of HMS Scorpion and HMS Beaver in 1804 was a textbook example of how a “cutting out” operation should be conducted. Directed by the brilliant 23-year old George Hardinge, it was to be characterised by chivalrous respect for the enemy as well as dauntless courage.
Click here to read about this epic action
The Wreck of HMS Venerable, 1804
In the Revolutionary-Napoleonic era the greatest threat to a wooden warship’s survival came more from stormy weather than from enemy action, especially if it were to be cast on a lee shore, where it could be battered to matchwood. One such loss occurred in 1804 when a Royal Navy “74”, HMS Venerable, encountered disaster. The rescue that followed involved however courage, professionalism, leadership and skill of the highest order.
Click here to read about this disaster…
The Epic of Diamond Rock 1804-05
The Stone Sloop: In 1804-05, off French-held Martinique, a towering pinnacle of rock, no more than three-hundred yards diameter and 570 feet high, became the scene of one of the most spectacular exploits ever of the Royal Navy. British fortification of the rock was an epic in itself, demanding that heavy guns be hoisted up from the sea over near-vertical cliffs. Rated as a sloop – HMS Diamond Rock – it held out for seventeen months despite shortages of food, ammunition and, above all, drinking water.
Click here to read about this amazing undertaking and its dramatic climax.
An epic last stand – HMS Arrow and HMS Acheron, 1805
This article deals with the most notable naval “last stands” of the Napoleonic era. Two small Royal Navy escort vessels faced up to a more powerful French attacking force to enable a convoy to escape. It’s the sort of story that might seem extreme in a work of naval fiction, but this was real life…
Click here to read about this epic action
The Loss of the troopship Aeneas, 1805
The aftermath of the wrecking, with heavy loss of life, of the British troopship Aeneas off Newfoundland in 1805 was to be an epic of human endurance.
Click here to read about the survivors’ ordeal
The epic of the schooner Betsey, 1805
The small British trading schooner Betsey ran aground on a reef in the South China Sea in 1805. The nearest land was some 270 miles away, but another 1000 miles were to be covered before final rescue. And by then drowning, privation, attack by pirates and imprisonment had sadly depleted the survivors’ numbers. This was one of the great epics of survival at sea against all odds and is largely forgotten today. This article tells the story of the Betsey’s crew.
Click here to read about this forgotten epic
“Poor Jack Spratt” at Trafalgar, 21st October 1805
All but forgotten today, James “Jack” Spratt was one of the heroes of Trafalgar. With almost insane bravery he swam from HMS Defiance, cutlass in his teeth and boarding axe in his belt, to her French duelling opponent, the “74” Aigle, and boarded her alone. What followed was a personal combat of Homeric proportions.
Click here to read about this iron man
James Lucas Yeo: Archetypal naval hero of the Napoleonic era
Handsome and courageous, obviously a born leader, Sir James Lucas Yeo (1782 – 1818) seems like a figure who steps from the pages of naval fiction. He is best remembered today for his command of British forces on the Great Lakes in the War of 1812 but this naval officer’s rapid ascent to such a significant command started with a spectacular attack on coastal fortifications in 1805. This article is in three parts:
Nelson’s Ship Smasher – the 32-Pounder
The heaviest guns routinely carried by the Royal Navy’s ships in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Ward were the 32-pounder “Ship Smashers”. My article draws on an 1895 book on naval gunnery and is illustrated by photographs taken by myself on HMS Victory.
Click here to read how these guns were served in action
Stranger than fiction: Privateer action off Madagascar 1806
Though mention warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail so often conjures up images of major fleet actions such as Camperdown, The Nile, and Trafalgar, single-ship actions between small vessels represented the vast majority of combats at sea. One of the most remarkable of these – stranger than fiction indeed – occurred in the Indian Ocean, off Madagascar in 1806. It did not involve ships of the official British and French navies but rather two privateers – privately owned vessels which had been issued “letters of marque” by their governments and thereby authorised to wage war on their behalf.
Click here to read about this remarkable action
The Capture of Curaçao 1807
In just a few hours on New Year’s Day 1807 the Royal Navy captured the Dutch base at Curaçao in the Caribbean with almost ludicrous ease despite its powerful defences. Failure to recover in time from hangovers resulting from the previous night’s festivities may have played a role…
Click here to read about this very well-managed operation
Hell and High Water: HMS Nautilus, 1807
The crew of the brig HMS Nautilus did not expect the hell and high water, and epic of endurance, that lay ahead, when she sailed from the Aegean in January 1807 with dispatches for Britain. Lashed for days by storms that all but engulfed the rocky Greek islet on which they were cast, the crew endured appalling privations – and some resorted to cannibalism – before Greek fishermen braved extreme conditions to rescue them.
Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2 of this epic story
A Marooning Scandal in the Royal Navy, 1807
One tends to think of “marooning” – abandoning a seaman alone on an uninhabited island – as being a punishment associated with buccaneers and pirates in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries. It is therefore somewhat of a shock that what was probably the last instance of such retribution occurred in the Royal Navy as late as 1807. The story is a fascinating one…
Click here to read about the HMS Recruit affair in 1807
The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, 1807
A confrontation between a British frigate, HMS Leopard, and a neutral American counterpart, USS Chesapeake, in 1807 had the potential to kick off “The War of 1812” between the two nations five years prematurely. Outrage in the United States at the loss of life, and perceived British arrogance, brought both nations to the brink of war. But for one of the captains involved a train of events was initiated that culminated in tragedy thirteen years later and cost the life of a national hero . . .
Click here to read about this regrettable affair . . .
Besting a French Privateer, 1807
With his crew outnumbered three to one, with too few men to man all his guns at once, Captain William Rogers of the British packet-brig Windsor Castle did not hesitate to fight a furious action with a French privateer in 1807. Though only twenty-four years old, the handsome captain was to prove himself – and his crew – fierce and indomitable in adversity.
Click here to read of this epic of the Age of Fighting Sail.
The Original Nelson’s Column, 1807/08
Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square has been a landmark in London since it was completed in 1843. It was not however the first column to be erected in the admiral’s honour and the earliest, dating from 1807/08, stands high atop a hill overlooking Portsmouth, a city with so many Nelsonic associations.
How HMS Flora died hard: 1808
In 1808 the frigate Royal Navy frigate HMS Flora, on blockade patrol off the northern coasts of the Netherlands, ran aground on shoals near the Friesian Islands. What followed during the fury of a winter storm was an epic of courage, discipline and endurance. The brutal pounding that the Flora withstood before she finally succumbed was evidence of just how strongly built such ships were and the resourcefulness of her captain was a tribute to the seamanship of naval officers of the time.
Click here to read about HMS Flora’s end
HMS Emerald at Viveiro, 1808
“Cutting-out” as a desperate class of operation in which the Royal Navy acquired vast proficiency in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars period. This involved boatloads of sailors and marines capturing enemy shipping from protected anchorages, usually in darkness, and often involved storming of coastal fortifications. Here’s a classic example from 1808 – HMS Emerald at Vimeiro, Northern Spain.
Storm and Horror: The Wreck of HMS Crescent, 1808
For most officers and men, storms represented a greater threat to life than enemy action throughout the Age of Fighting Sail. The case of the frigate HMS Crescent, victor of a famous ship-to-ship duel in 1793, shows how even a well-built ship could be was pounded to driftwood by a storm on a lee shore.
Click here to read of this tragedy and of courage in extreme emergency
The brig HMS Redwing takes on odds of seven to one – 1808
A spirit of aggression, regardless of odds, characterised the Royal Navy in the Age of Fighting Sail, to an extent that it became almost a weapon in itself, disconcerting the enemy and establishing a moral advantage even before the first shot was fired. An excellent example was the action fought by the brig HMS Redwing in May 1808. But the irony of the affair was that events elsewhere had already made the men who fought each other all but allies.
Click here to read about this action
The Royal Navy at war with Russia, 1808 & 1809
For almost five years, 1807 to 1812, Russia was an ally of the French Empire, albeit a less than enthusiastic one. Their final falling-out would lead to Napoleon’s appalling retreat from Moscow and, ultimately, to Cossacks camping on the Champs Élysées in Paris less than two years later. But while Russia was still France’s ally, the Royal Navy’s ‘74”, HMS Implacable, and other warships, were engaged in some very aggressive and daring operations against the Russian Navy in the Baltic.
Click here to read about some of these largely forgotten combats
The Heroine of Matagorda, 1810
Not all the women of the Regency era were dancing and flirting with Mr. Darcy! In 1810, at the height of the Siege of Cadiz, the fearless Mrs. Agnes Reston won glory as “The Heroine of Matagorda”. Her exploits were to provide inspiration for the eminent Scottish poet, William McGonnagal.
Click here to read about her exploits
The Death of a ’74’ – HMS Minotaur, 1810
A Royal Navy ’74’ ship-of-the-line, HMS Minotaur, a veteran of the Battles of The Nile and Trafalgar, was wrecked in horrific circumstances in December 1810. Her fate was to prefigure a much larger tragedy in the same waters exactly twelve months later (See Article below about HMS Hero, 1811).
Click here to read about HMS Minotaur’s end
British merchantman Fortune against a French privateer, 1811
A small British trading brig, the Fortune, was attacked by a larger French privateer, her crew outnumbered six to one. The outcome seemed pre-ordained. But the Fortune and her crew did not surrender…
Click here to read about this epic action
The Merchantman Three Sisters vs. a French Privateer, 1811
During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars many British merchant vessels sailed independently and were reliant on their own ability – and willingness – to defend themselves. A major hazard were French privateers, licensed by their government to attack enemy shipping and rewarded by sharing in the value of their prizes. Combats like this did not always go in favour of the attacker, as told in the succinct account by the captain of the Three Sisters which encountered a heavily armed French privateer in 1811.
Click here to read the captain’s own short and eloquent post-action report
The spectacular life and death of Sabrina Island 1811
A Royal Navy sloop-of-war, HMS Sabrina, was to make a very surprising discovery off the Azores when an underwater volcano became active
Click here to read more about it
HMS Quebec off Nordeney: Small Boat Action 1811
The small scale attack by a small Royal Navy force on enemy gunboats at the East Friesan Island of Norderney in 1811 was a desperate action straight out of the pages of naval fiction. This article tells about an unusual aspect of the naval war against Napoleon. It also has a sad postscript that relates to the British-American conflict of the War of 1812.
Click here to read more about this short but fierce engagement
The loss of HMS Hero, Christmas 1811
Throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, storms at sea represented a greater – and more constant – hazard for most ships of the Royal Navy than did enemy action. This was compounded by the need to convoy the enormous merchant fleets needed to sustain Britain’s war effort against France and her allies. The loss the “74” ship-of-the-line HMS Hero at Christmas 1811, at the cost of hundreds of lives, is a stark reminder of the price demanded for maritime supremacy.
Click here to read about this disaster
The Human Price: Mrs. Phelan and HMS Swallow, 1812
In 1812 the heavily-armed Brig HMS Swallow made a brilliant inshore raid close to the French port of Frejus. It earned her captain coveted “post rank” but the most unexpected heroes of the action were the ship’s purser (a position often little respected due to widespread suspicions of dishonesty) and the wife of a seaman. This lady, a Mars. Phelan, had given birth on board a scant three weeks previously, but this did not daunt her courage. And there is a sad postscript…
Click here to read this remarkable – and moving – story
Two USS Wasps: Glory and Tragedy in the War of 1812
Two almost identical sloops-of-war named Wasp were to serve with distinction in America’s War of 1812 with Britain. Their lives were short, though packed with incident, but an identical fate was to befall them both.
Click here to read more about this tragic pair
HMS Pelican vs USS Argus 1813
The War of 1812 at sea is often thought of in terms of epic single-ship actions between frigates, but one of the most bloody encounters took place not just between two much smaller craft, but in British home waters.
Read here about this bloody encounter between British and American brigs of war
On the Royal Navy List for 96 Years – Sir Provo Wallis (1791-1892)
I am always intrigued by how much change – political, technical, economic, scientific – can occur in a single human lifetime. A spectacular example of this was Admiral Sir Provo Wallis. Having taken command of HMS Shannon in her epic duel with the USS Chesapeake in 1813 he was to live to 101 years old and, amazingly, had been entered on the Navy List for 96 of these years.
Click here to read of Wallis’s amazing career
The Loss of HMS Dædalus, 1813
A separate article below describes how the respected frigate captain Murray Maxwell, saved his entire crew from starvation and attack by pirates after the shipwreck of HMS Alceste in 1817. He did so by superb leadership and professionalism. Maxwell had however already lost another frigate, HMS Daedalus, in 1813 in an incident that was indicative of the hazards of navigating in waters that had then been poorly or inadequately charted.
Click here to read about this incident
Captain Philip Browne – a real-life Jack Aubrey
On occasion however one wonders if heroes of naval fiction, such as Forester’s Hornblower or O’Brian’s Aubrey, have a succession of exploits that are just a little too unlikely, given just how much action they see in their careers. But the truth, when investigated, is often more extraordinary than the fiction. Here’s a record of what a single real-life Royal Navy officer could achieve in the course of his very colourful career
Click here to read about Captain Philip Brown, his prizes and his court-martial
The Death of Captain Sir Peter Parker of HMS Menelaus, 1814
During the War of 1812, at Caulk’s Field, near Baltimore, a British landing party ran into American Militia. In the ensuing battle a dashing young frigate captain, Sir Peter Parker, died. The aftermath exemplified the devotion of common seamen of the period to admired officers.
Click here to read the full story
The attack on the privateer General Armstrong 1814
“Cutting out” operations were the SEAL or SBS-type operations of the Napoleonic era. Small boats carrying large numbers of armed seamen attempted to capture enemy ships which had gained the shelter of a harbour of guarded anchorage and they became somewhat of a Royal Navy speciality. But one such operation against an American privateer in 1814 was to have a very unexpected outcome…
Article awaiting revision
Click here to read about this dramatic action
The bloody Plattsburg mutiny, 1816
A fast-sailing American trading schooner carrying eleven thousand pounds of coffee and forty-two thousand dollars in coins was hijacked by her mutinous crew in 1816. But the voyage that followed brought them to a very unlikely destination and was to end in a mystery that is still unsolved. This article is in two parts
Discipline Collapses – the wreck of HMS Penelope, 1815
When reading of the losses of Royal Navy warships in the Age of Fighting Sail, whether in battle or by shipwreck, one is struck by the professionalism and discipline of both officers and men in the most appalling circumstances It is therefore somewhat of a shock to read of the massive breakdown of discipline that surrounded the loss of the frigate-turned troopship, HMS Penelope, in 1815.
Click here to read of this horrific incident
Discipline, heroism and survival: HMS Alceste, 1817
The value of professionalism and discipline has seldom been so dramatically illustrated when a Royal Navy frigate, HMS Alceste, was wrecked in the Java Sea 1817.
Click here to read this inspiring story
Lafayette at Sea 1824
Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette (1757 –1834) is remembered chiefly today, especially in the United States, as one of the heroes of the American Revolution. The popular image is of the dashing young French general who became an all but surrogate son to George Washington but this was at the very outset of his remarkable career. By the early 1820s he was the last surviving general of the War of Independence and the heroes of the period were dying off. The time was never more appropriate for Lafayette to revisit the United States. But in mid-Atlantic he was to have a remarkable meeting with a group of British army-officers, as recounted by one of them. It offers a pleasing insight to Lafayette’s character…
Click here to read of this strange meeting
The Loss of the East Indiaman Kent in 1825 and its immortalisation in verse
Fire is perhaps the most feared of all dangers at sea, but the reality was seldom more terrible than in the case of the small, and overloaded, East Indiaman Kent in 1825 when she was carrying large numbers of troops, and their families, to India. Outstanding heroism was displayed by rescuers and troops alike. The incident aroused immense interest at the time and was to be immortalised later by a well-known Scottish poet.
Click here to read about the Kent’s disaster and the heroic rescue efforts that followed…
Mutiny on the High Seas – The Gold Hunter, 1828
A packet vessel, en route from Britain to the United States, was threatened with takeover by a mutinous crew. But the ring leader had not however reckoned on the resolution and inventiveness of one of the passengers – who resorted to chemical warfare to bring the affair to a conclusion. This article draws on a splendidly florid account written some time later and quotes directly from some of the hilariously elaborate prose it contains.
Click here to read about this remarkable incident
Benito de Soto – psychopathic pirate of the 1820s
Though the “Great Age of Piracy” was in the late 17th and early 18th Century, there was a brief resurgence in the North and South Atlantic – where one might not have expected it – in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Contrary to much modern mythology, the was nothing romantic about murder and armed robbery at sea. One of the most brutal – and psychopathic – pirates of this late era was Benito de Soto, who operated in the late 1820s.
Click here for the first part of the article that tells his story.
Click here for the second part of the article.
“I’d rather be blown up!” – Antwerp 1831
The painful events surrounding the creation of the modern Kingdom of Belgium in 1830-31 are largely unknown today outside the Low Countries. They did however include an incident centred on a young Dutch naval lieutenant who became a national hero and who, by Royal Decree, has been commemorated ever since by a ship being named after him in the Royal Netherlands Navy.
Click here to read more about Jan van Speijk
HMS Magicienne’s survival, 1831
Fire at sea has always been terrifying when it occurs, but never more so than in the days of wooden ships. Appalling losses were suffered from this cause and, in the absence of modern damage-control systems, fire brought for warships the extra threat of magazine explosion. It is therefore all the more heartening to learn about the salvation of a Royal Navy warship, HMS Magicienne, from such a fate in 1831, through a combination of cold calculation, iron nerve and superb discipline.
Click here to read the Magicienne’s story
The Wreck of the paddle-steamer Rothsay Castle, 1831
There is a terrible fascination about 19th Century shipping disasters, since they illustrate how the management of civilian shipping was often so lackadaisical and how command, control and management techniques did not keep pace with newly introduced steam-technology. Major disasters which took hundreds of lives were relatively commonplace – the death toll being too often increased by absence of the most basic safety provisions such as life boat provisions – and huge numbers of small trading or fishing craft were lost annually, often without trace. A disaster in 1831, in the infancy of steam-propulsion, evoked horror and outrage at the time, and yet the obvious lessons to be drawn from it were not learned and not implemented for decades to come.
Click here to read about this disaster
HMS BLACK JOKE engages a slaver, 1831
The Royal Navy played a proud role in suppression of the slave trade in the North and South Atlantic, for a half-century, following Britain’s abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807. One of the most successful vessels involved was the bizarrely-name HMS Black Joke, herself a captured slaver. In five years from 1827, she was to liberate a total of some 4300 slaves in twelve separate actions. Some of these were bloody affairs as well-armed slavers fought back. Here’s an account of one of these desperate fights.
Click here to read about this action
The US Navy’s anti-pirate expeditions to Sumatra in 1832 and 1838
The US Navy’s role in the suppression of Barbary piracy in the Mediterranean is deservedly well known but few today are aware that in the 1830s two American expeditions were launched against pirates in what is now Indonesia. Forgotten today, they were to be decisive deployments of force that ended the threat to American shipping in the area.
Click here to read about these all-but-forgotten expeditions
The End of Fighting Sail – Sidon, Beirut and Acre 1840
Though steam propulsion was first applied to warships, on a small scale, in the late 1830s, it was to take another half-century before sail was finally abandoned by the world’s navies. 1840 was however to see the last major action by the Royal Navy in which a sailing wooden line-of-battle ship, of a type almost identical to those which fought under Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805, was to play the leading role.
Click here to read about this action and the circumstances that led to it….