HMS Aetna (1803)

Last updated

'Etna' (Aetna) (1804) RMG J0389.png
Ship's plans for Etna (Aetna)
Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom
NameSuccess
Builder Arundel, [1] equally Littlehampton, [2]
Launched1803
FateSold 1803
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Aetna
Namesake Mount Etna
Acquiredby purchase, 1803
CommissionedDecember 1803
DecommissionedLate 1815
Honours and
awards
FateSold, 1816 and disposed in Woolwich
Civil Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom
NameSuccess
Acquired1816 by purchase
FateWrecked 1823
General characteristics [6]
Type Bomb vessel
Tons burthen366, [2] or 367, [1] or 368 (bm)
Length
  • Overall:102 ft 0 in (31.1 m)
  • Keel:81 ft 0 in (24.7 m)
Beam29 ft 2+1⁄2 in (8.9 m)
Depth of hold12 ft 6 in (3.8 m)
PropulsionSails
Complement67
Armament
  • 8 × 24-pounder carronades
  • 1 × 13 in (330 mm) mortar
  • 1 × 10 in (250 mm) mortar

HMS Aetna (or HMS Etna) was the mercantile Success launched in 1803 at Littlehampton. The Admiralty purchased her in 1803 for conversion into a Royal Navy bomb vessel. Aetna participated in the second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807 and the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809. Later, she participated in the attack on Fort McHenry in the Battle of Baltimore and the bombardment of Fort Washington, Maryland in 1814, during the War of 1812. The Navy sold her in 1816 and she returned to mercantile service under her original name. She sailed to Calcutta, to Rio de Janeiro, and more locally until she was wrecked in 1823.

Contents

Mercantile origins

Aetna was the merchant vessel Success, launched at Arundel, equally Littlehampton, [2] at the mouth of the River Arun. She appeared in the Register of Shipping (RS) in the volume for 1804 with W.Birch, master, J. Coney, owner, and trade London. [1] The Admiralty purchased Success in 1803. [6]

Aetna was commissioned in December 1803 under Commander George Cocks and first served in the Mediterranean. His replacement was Commander Richard Thomas. [6]

In December 1805 she came under the command of Captain John Quillam and in February 1807 or so under Commander William Peake, still in the Mediterranean. She was recommissioned in June 1807 under Commander William Godfrey for the Baltic. [6] There she took part in the siege and bombardment of Copenhagen between 15 August and 20 October 1807, resulting in the capture of Danish Fleet by Admiral Gambier. [7] [8]

Commander Paul Lawless assumed command of Aetna in August, though he may have already been in command before then. [6] Cockburn in his dispatches after the campaign noted that "the constant and correct Fire from the Ætna, Captain Lawless, particularly drew my Attention." [9] Commander John Bowker replaced Lawless and then sailed Aetna for Cadiz on 8 April 1810. [6]

In November 1811 Commander Richard Kenah replaced Bowker. He sailed Aetna to the Baltic in 1813. [6]

Aetna then sailed for North America. In April 1814 Aetna sailed to America to join the squadron of Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane.

Potomac River expedition

On 17 August the frigate Euryalus, bombs Devastation, Aetna, and Meteor , the rocket ship Erebus, and the dispatch boat Anna-Maria were detached under Captain Gordon of Seahorse to sail up the Potomac River and bombard Fort Washington, about ten or twelve miles below the capital. Contrary winds meant they had to sweep for more than 50 miles over a period of five successive days, and lacking a pilot through Kettle-Bottoms, meant that it took ten days to reach the Fort. [8] [10]

Battle of Baltimore

On 12 September 1814 Erebus, Meteor, Aetna, Terror, Volcano, and Devastation sailed up the Patapsco River in preparation for an attack on Baltimore, commencing their bombardment of Fort McHenry on the 13th, before being ordered to withdraw on the 14th. [7]

On 19 September 1814 the fleet, including Royal Oak, Asia, Ramillies, and Aetna, remained at anchor in the Patuxent River until 27th when it moved to the Potomac where shore operations were recommenced on 3 October, on which day Commander Kenah was killed. [6] On 14 October the fleet departed for Negril Bay, Jamaica, arriving on 5 November, to prepare for the attack on New Orleans. [7] Commander Francis Fead commanded Aetna in 1815, [6] having assumed command on 4 October 1814. [11]

Gulf Coast

At the end of 1814, Aetna took part in the Gulf Campaign. First, her crew participated in the Battle of Lake Borgne. [lower-alpha 1] Next, Aetna and Meteor were dispatched up the Mississippi, along with Thistle, Herald, and Pigmy, to create a diversion by bombarding Fort St Philip. [13] It took the British vessels from 30 December to 9 January 1815 to work the forty miles up the Mississippi to the fort, by warping and hard towing to the Plaquemines Bend, just below the fort. [14] For most of January, Aetna was moored off the Mississippi; she moved to a new anchorage off Ship Island on 27 January 1815. [15] On 9 February, Aetna was off Mobile Sound, and was ordered to send Lieutenant Knight and his Marine artillerymen to join the army on shore, who were preparing to besiege Fort Bowyer. The following day, the bomb vessels Meteor, [16] and Hydra arrived. Aetna witnessed the capitulation of the fort and the raising of the Union Jack. [15]

Aetna was to remain off Mobile until the end of March 1815. On 25 April, she embarked some refugee slaves for passage to the Caribbean. They had come from Negro Fort, which the British were evacuating. Once the former slaves had disembarked, Aetna embarked invalided servicemen whom she carried to Portsmouth.

Disposal

Returning from America, Aetna arrived back at Portsmouth on 19 July 1815, [7] before sailing to Woolwich for disposal. The principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy offered the "Ætna bomb, of 368 tons", lying at Woolwich, for sale on 14 December. [17] She sold there on 11 January 1816 for £1,850. [6]

Mercantile service

Success reappeared in Lloyd's Register in 1816 with Martin, master, Morgan & Co., owner, and trade London–Jamaica. She had undergone a thorough repair in 1816. [2]

YearMasterOwnerTradeSource
1818MartinMorgan & Co.London–Calcutta LR; thorough repairs 1816
1820MartinMorgan & Co.London–GibraltarLR; thorough repairs 1816

On 26 November 1817 Success was at Deal, having arrived from the Thames on her way to Calcutta. On 28 February 1818 Success arrived off the Cape of Good Hope from London; she was bound for Calcutta. She arrived back at Gravesend on 254 January 1819.

On 30 December 1818 as Success was returning from Bengal she was off Pico Island in the Azores when the insurgent privateer schooner Buenos Ayres, of 18 guns and 100 men (mostly Britons and Americans), boarded Success. In the dusk they suspected that she was Spanish because of her high stern. The privateer's men inspected her papers carefully to insure that she was not Spanish sailing under a false flag. The privateer's Chief Mate informed Captain Martin that the privateer had been out nine months and had a successful cruise, having captured numerous vessels, including a major Spanish vessel and a Portuguese vessel coming from Bengal with Spanish goods on board. [18]

YearMasterOwnerTradeSource
1822MartinMorgan & Co.London–Rio de JaneiroLR; thorough repairs 1816, small repairs 1822
1824T.MartinMorgan & Co. Cork–Gibraltar
London–Quebec		LR; small repairs 1822

Fate

Lloyd's List published a letter from Les Sables-d'Olonne dated 16 August 1823, reporting that Success, Martin, had wrecked while sailing between Oberon (Oléron) to Abbeveille. The crew had been saved. [19]

Notes

  1. ↑ 'Notice is hereby given to the officers and companies of His Majesty's ships Aetna, Alceste, Anaconda, Armide, Asia, Bedford, Belle Poule, Borer, Bucephalus, Calliope, Carron, Cydnus, Dictator, Diomede, Dover, Fox, Gorgon, Herald, Hydra, Meteor, Norge, Nymphe, Pigmy, Ramillies, Royal Oak, Seahorse, Shelburne, Sophie, Thames, Thistle, Tonnant, Trave, Volcano, and Weser, that they will be paid their respective proportions of prize money.' [12]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 RS (1804). Seq.№S681.
  2. 1 2 3 4 LR (1816), Supple/ pages "S", Seq.№S79.
  3. ↑ "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. p. 242.
  4. ↑ "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. p. 247.
  5. ↑ "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. p. 245.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Winfield (2008), p. 374.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "HMS Aetna". P. Benyon. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018.
  8. 1 2 "AETNA (1803)". ageofnelson.org. Retrieved 6 October 2009.
  9. ↑ "No. 16289". The London Gazette . 20 August 1809. p. 1326.
  10. ↑ "DEVASTATION (1804)". ageofnelson.org. Retrieved 6 October 2009.
  11. ↑ O'Byrne (1849), pp. 349–350.
  12. ↑ "No. 17730". The London Gazette . 28 July 1821. p. 1561.
  13. ↑ "No. 16991". The London Gazette . 9 March 1815. pp. 449–451.
  14. ↑ Fraser & Carr-Laughton (1930), p. 295.
  15. 1 2 "Royal Marines on the Gulf Coast" . Retrieved 19 January 2014. Extracted information from the log of HMS Aetna
  16. ↑ Fraser & Carr-Laughton (1930), p. 294.
  17. ↑ "No. 17086". The London Gazette . 2 December 1815. p. 2399.
  18. ↑ Lloyd's List (LL) 15 January 1819, №5357.
  19. ↑ LL 2 September 1823, №5834.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Tonnant</i> 80-gun ship of the line

HMS Tonnant was an 80-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had previously been Tonnant of the French Navy and the lead ship of the Tonnant class. The British captured her in August 1793 during the Siege of Toulon but the French recaptured her when the siege was broken in December. Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson captured her at Aboukir Bay off the coast of Egypt at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798. She was taken into British service as HMS Tonnant. She went on to fight at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, during the Napoleonic Wars.

HMS <i>Euryalus</i> (1803) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Euryalus was a Royal Navy 36-gun Apollo-class frigate that saw service in the Battle of Trafalgar and the War of 1812. During her career she was commanded by three prominent naval personalities of the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period: Henry Blackwood, George Dundas and Charles Napier. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she continued on active service for a number of years, before spending more than two decades as a prison hulk. She ended her career in Gibraltar where, in 1860, she was sold for breaking up.

HMS Heron was originally the merchant vessel Jason, launched at Newcastle in 1803, that the Admiralty purchased in 1804 for the Royal Navy for use as 16-gun ship-sloop under the name HMS Heron. During the Napoleonic Wars she served as a convoy escort on the Leeward Islands station. Then in 1810 the Admiralty had her converted into a bomb vessel and renamed her HMS Volcano. As Volcano she served during the War of 1812, and in particular participated in the Battle of Baltimore. The Admiralty sold her in 1816. New owners returned her to mercantile service under her original name of Jason. She was wrecked in 1821.

HMS Devastation was an 8-gun British Royal Navy bomb vessel launched in 1803 at South Shields as the mercantile Intrepid. The Navy purchased her in 1804. She served in the English Channel, the Baltic, off the coast of Spain, and in the United States during the Napoleonic Wars and War of 1812, most notably at the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814. The Navy sold her in 1816.

HMS <i>Starr</i> (1805) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Starr was a 16-gun Merlin-class ship sloop of the Royal Navy. She was built by Tanner, of Dartmouth, to plans by Sir William Rule, and launched in July 1805. As a sloop she served on convoy duty, though she also participated in the invasion of Martinique in early 1809. She was rebuilt as a bomb vessel in May 1812 and renamed Meteor. As Meteor she served in the Baltic and then off the United States, participating in attacks on up the Potomac and on Baltimore and New Orleans. She was sold in October 1816.

HMS <i>Mutine</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Mutine was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by Henry Tucker at Bideford and launched in 1806. During her career she was in combat in Danish waters, in the Bay of Biscay, and at Algiers. She also visited North America, South America, and the West Coast of Africa. She was sold in 1819.

HMS <i>Meteor</i> (1803)

HMS Meteor was a bomb vessel of the Royal Navy. She was previously the West Indiaman Sarah Ann, launched at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1800 that the Admiralty purchased in October 1803. She conducted bombardments at Havre de Grâce, the Dardanelles, and Rosas Bay, on the Spanish coast. She was sold in 1811. she then returned to mercantile service under her original name, Sarah Ann. She continued to trade, primarily across the North Atlantic. She was last listed in 1863 with stale data.

HMS <i>Herald</i> (1806) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Herald was an 18-gun ship-sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, launched in 1806 at Littlehampton. In 1810 she was reclassed as a 20-gun sixth rate ship, and again re-rated as 24 guns in 1817, just before she was broken up.

HMS Cydnus was one of eight Royal Navy 38-gun Cydnus-class fifth-rates. This frigate was built in 1813 at Blackwall Yard, London, and broken up in 1816.

HMS Fairy (1812) was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by William Taylor at Bideford and launched in 1812. She escorted convoys during the War of 1812 and participated in the Raid on Alexandria, the Royal Navy’s incursion up the Potomac in 1814. She was broken up in 1821.

HMS Ballahoo was the first of the Royal Navy's Ballahoo-class schooners, vessels of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. She patrolled primarily in the Leeward Islands, taking several small prizes, before an American privateer captured her in 1814 during the War of 1812.

HMS <i>Beagle</i> (1804) Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop (1804–1813)

HMS Beagle was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars. She played a major role in the Battle of the Basque Roads. Beagle was laid up in ordinary in 1813 and sold in 1814.

HMS <i>Superieure</i> (1803)

HMS Superieure was the French privateer Supérieure, which was built in 1801 in Baltimore, Maryland, and which the British captured in 1803 in the West Indies, and took into the Royal Navy. She spent most of her career on the Jamaica and Leeward Islands stations, where she captured numerous privateers. She participated in several notable single-ship actions, including one in which she harassed a frigate, and two campaigns that would, in 1847, earn her surviving crew members the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She was laid-up in Britain in 1810 and sold in 1814.

HMS Redbreast was an Archer-class brig of the British Royal Navy. She captured some small merchant vessels and privateers. She also participated in two actions that would in 1847 earn her surviving crew members clasps to the Naval General service Medal (NGSM). The Navy transferred in 1816 to His Majesty's Customs. She was finally sold in 1850.

HMS Pultusk was the American-built French privateer sloop Austerlitz, which had been launched in 1805 and which the Royal Navy captured in 1807 and took into service as HMS Pultusk. Pultusk served in three campaigns, two of which resulted, some four decades later, in the award of medals, and one boat action that too received a medal. She was broken up in 1810.

HMS Attentive was an Archer-class gun-brig of the Royal Navy, launched in 1804. she captured a small privateer and participated in some other captures in the Leeward Islands before returning to Britain, where she was broken up in 1812.

Ann and Amelia was a three-decker merchant ship launched in 1781. The British East India Company (EIC) twice employed her as an "extra ship", first when she went out to India to sail in trade in that market, and again in 1803 when she sailed back from India to Britain. On her return to Britain the Admiralty purchased her in June 1804 and converted her to a 44-gun fifth rate with the name HMS Mediator. The Navy converted her to a storeship in 1808, but then expended her as a fireship at the battle of the Basque Roads in April 1809.

HMS <i>Thistle</i> (1812) Brig of the Royal Navy

HMS Thistle was a 12-gun Bold-class gun-brig built by Mary Ross at Rochester, Kent. She was launched in 1812 and broken up at Portsmouth in July 1823.

HMS Express was the American merchant vessel Achilles, launched in 1809 in America. Her owners in 1813 renamed her Anna Maria. In 1814 she served the British Royal Navy in North American waters as an advice boat. In 1815 the Royal Navy commissioned her as HMS Express, a ship's tender serving in the Mediterranean. In 1816 she was at the bombardment of Algiers. The Navy sold her at Malta in 1827.

HMS Thunder was an 8-gun bomb vessel of the Royal Navy, previously the mercantile Dasher. Dasher, launched at Bideford in 1800, had made two voyages as a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people before the Royal Navy purchased her in 1803 and renamed her HMS Thunder. Thunder served in the Mediterranean and the Baltic; among other actions, she participated in a battle and one single-ship action, each of which resulted in her crew later qualifying for clasps to the Naval General Service Medal (1847). The Navy sold her in 1814.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.