While with Crocodile, Bettesworth was involved in an unsuccessful claim for salvage rights to the American vessel Walker. A French privateer had captured Walker, but her crew had subsequently recaptured their ship when Crocodile came on the scene. Crocodile then escorted Walker to Halifax.[3] For this service, Bettesworth claimed salvage rights. The court did not agree.[4]
On 29 August 1807 Crocodile captured De Twende Brodre, while the privateer Lion was in sight.[a][b]
Around this time Crocodile detained the Danish packet shipFoedres Mende, from Batavia and Bengal, and sent her into The Downs.[7] The Gunboat War had commenced as the Royal Navy had sailed to attack Copenhagen.
Cadogan and Crocodile sailed to the Cape of Good Hope in December 1807 as escort to the storeship Abundance and the transport Sally. They arrived in March after a voyage of 12 weeks. They brought recruits for the 29th, 72nd, and 93rd Regiments of Foot.[9]
In August Crocodile carried Arthur Wellesley to Portugal to lead the British intervention in the Peninsular War. Crocodile was part of a squadron consisting of Donegal and Resistance, all under the command of Captain Pulteney Malcolm of Donegal. They escorted 75 transports, carrying 30,000 troops, from Cork to Mondego Bay.
In November Cadogan and Crocodile captured sundry Danish vessels. This led, in December 1809, to her receiving a distribution of £4000 in prize money;[10] Cadogan would have received at least a quarter of that. On 21 December Crocodile was in company with Alexandria and Fury and shared in the capture on that day of Cupido and Speculation.[11]
In March 1809 Crocodile captured three Danish vessels: Haabet, Manual, and Alexto, all carrying deals (a type of cheap lumber, usually of pine). The British gathered the vessels, and some more Danish vessels that other British vessels had captured, in Gothenburg. The captured vessels left Gothenburg on 23 March and by early April most had arrived at British ports.[12] On 5 April Argus, of Norway, and also a prize to Crocodile, arrived in Yarmouth.[13]
In mid-April 1809 Cadogan and Devons underwent a court-martial at Portsmouth. A Richard Cumberland had written to the Lords of the Admiralty that they had acted in a "cruel, tyrannical, and oppressive manner" towards his grandson, W.R. Badcock, a midshipman on Crocodile, and that this treatment had hastened Badcock's death. The court martial acquitted Cadogan and Devons, pointing out that the charges were not proven, that many of Cumberland's observations were unfounded, and that Badcock's death could not even remotely be tied to the punishment he had received on Crocodile.[14]
Cadogan assumed command of Pallas on 16 September 1809.[8] Captain Edward H. Columbine replaced him on Crocodile. On 13 January 1810 Columbine sailed Crocodile for Africa.[1]
During her time with the West Africa Squadron, Crocodile or her ship's tenders detained 11 vessels, though the Vice admiralty court in Freetown restored several to their owners.[15]
On 22 May Crocodile took Donna Marianna for breach of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Although Donna Marianna was ostensibly a Portuguese vessel, a British court on appeal upheld the seizure on the grounds that she was actually a British vessel and her Portuguese papers were a fraud.[c]
On 22 May 1811, Columbine and Crocodile sailed for Britain, briefly in company with Protector. On 19 June Columbine died during the night and in the morning the crew buried him at sea.[19]
Captain John Richard Lumley succeeded Columbine in 1811, and was himself replaced by Captain William Elliot in June 1812. Elliot and Crocodile served on the Channel Islands station. Still, Elliot sailed her for Portugal on 9 November.[1]
On 24 April 1813 Santos Marter, De Souza, master, arrived at Gibraltar. She had been sailing from Charleston to Cádiz when Crocodile captured her.[20] Two weeks later, on 9 May, Roba & Betsey, Baldry, master, arrived at Gibraltar. She had been sailing from Charleston to Cadiz when Crocodile captured her.[21]
Fate
Crocodile was paid off in June 1815. She then was broken up in October 1816 at Portsmouth.[1]
Notes
↑ A first class share of the prize money was worth £12 8s 0½d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 1s 3¼d.[5]
↑ This was probably the cutter Lion, of 103 tons (bm), David Lewis, master. She had a crew of 20 men and was armed with twelve 4, 9, & 12-pounder guns.[6]
↑ A moiety of the proceeds of the seizure was then paid in November 1814. The distribution to the officers and crew was governed by the provisions of His Majesty's Act in Council of 12 October 1764, not the more recent changes in the prize law. Columbine's share of the distribution was worth £443 17s 0d; a seaman's share was worth £1 15s 9d.[16] The reason that the 1764 Order pertained was that Donna Marianna was treated as a smuggler. It was only on 14 October 1816 that a new Order in Council rescinded the 1764 Order, and brought the treatment of bounty money for smugglers in line with that for other prizes.[17]
HMS Clio was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched at James Betts' shipyard in Mistleythorn in Essex on 10 January 1807. Her establishment was 71 officers and men, 24 boys and 20 marines. She served in the Baltic during the Napoleonic Wars, accomplished the re-establishment of British rule on the Falkland Islands in 1833, and participated in the First Opium War. She was broken up in 1845.
George Edmund Byron Bettesworth was a British Naval Officer. During his service he participated in a notable single ship action, and had been wounded 24 times.
HMS Surinam was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Obadiah Ayles at Topsham, Exeter and launched in 1805. She captured one privateer during her twenty-year career and took part in two campaigns before she was broken up in 1825.
HMS Cuttle was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner 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 1807. She was broken up in 1814.
HMS Musquito. was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John Preston at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1804. She was commissioned in October 1804 under Commander Samuel Jackson. She served in the North Sea and the Baltic, and Jackson supervised the first successful rocket attack in Europe at Boulogne in 1806. After the war she served off Africa and captured some slavers. She was broken up in 1822, having been laid up since 1818.
HMS Rover was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop laid down in 1804 but not launched until 1808. She served in the North Sea, off the north coast of Spain, in the Channel, and on the North American station. She captured two letters-of-marque and numerous merchant vessels before being laid-up in 1815. She then sat unused until she was sold in 1828. She became a whaler that made four voyages to the British southern whale fishery between 1830 and 1848. She was last listed in 1848.
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 Kangaroo was an 18-gun sloop of the Royal Navy launched in 1805. The Navy sold her in 1815 and she became the whaler Countess of Morley. After three whaling voyages she became a merchantman. She may have been condemned c.1827; she was last listed in 1833.
HMS Thais was built for the British Royal Navy in 1806 and was the name-vessel of her class of fire ships. Between 1811 and 1813 she served in the West Africa Squadron, which was attempting to suppress the slave trade. During this service she captured several slave traders and an American privateer. She made one voyage to the East Indies. Thais was sold in 1818. She then became a merchantman. She was last listed in 1826.
Donna Marianna was a vessel that left Liverpool in 1809. On 22 May 1810 HMS Crocodile seized Donna Marianna for breach of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. The Vice admiralty court at Freetown, Sierra Leone, condemned Donna Mariana and her owners appealed the decision. The result of the appeal was a finding against the owners in a case that became an important milestone in the suppression of the slave trade.
HMS Derwent was launched in 1807 and later that year became one of the first ships sent by the British Royal Navy to suppress the slave trade.
Dart was a ship launched in South America under a different name. She was taken in prize circa 1806. Once under British ownership she performed one voyage as a whaler in the southern whale fishery. She then traded as a merchantman before in 1810 receiving a letter of marque. As a privateer she did something quite unusual: she made a voyage to Africa where she captured five slave ships. After this Dart returned to normal trading, this time with South America. In 1813 as she was returning to London from Buenos Aires she stopped at Pernambuco, where she was condemned as unseaworthy.
Rolla was a French brig launched in 1801 or 1803, that came into British hands in 1804. She became a privateer and then a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people, but before she was able to embark any captives the French Navy captured her. The British Royal Navy recaptured her and took her into service as HMS Rolla. She served in Sir Home Riggs Popham's attack on Buenos Aires. She returned to Britain in December 1807 and was laid up. The Admiralty sold her in 1810 and she became a merchant vessel. She was last listed in 1826, and may have been lost on the coast of Brazil in 1825.
HMS Cormorant was probably launched in 1803 at Howden Pans as the merchant ship Blenheim. The Admiralty purchased her in June and the Royal Navy took her into service to use her as a convoy escort. Then in 1809 it converted her into a storeship. After the Admiralty sold her in 1817, she resumed the Blenheim name and returned to mercantile service as a West Indiaman. She disappeared after 10 November 1821 and was presumed to have foundered.
Norfolk was built in France in 1784 under a different name. The British captured her c. 1800 and she made some voyages as a West Indiaman. She also made a cruise as a privateer. Between 1803 and 1808 she served the Royal Navy as an armed defense and hired armed ship on the Leith Station. She spent her time escorting convoys in the North Sea and captured one French privateer. After her naval service, between 1808 and 1814 Norfolk was a London-based transport. From 1814 to 1820 she made four voyages as a whaler in the British southern whale fishery. She was last listed in 1823.
Otter was launched in America in 1799. She appeared in the Register of Shipping in 1809, after she had already made the first of three voyages as a whaler. She then started trading with the Mediterranean where the French captured her in 1813.
HMS Monkey was launched in 1801 at Rochester. She served in the Channel, North Sea, and the Baltic, and was wrecked in December 1810.
HMS Juniper was launched at Bermuda in 1809 for the British Royal Navy. She participated in one campaign for which her crew was awarded the Naval General Service Medal (1847) with clasp "San Sebastian". She also participated in the capture of several merchant ships. The Navy sold her in 1814.
HMS Favorite was an 18-gun Cormorant-class ship-sloop, launched in 1806 and broken up in 1821. In her career she sailed as far North America, the Caribbean, Africa, South America, and the Far East. She captured or recaptured several merchant ships and a handful of privateers.
HMS Richmond was a Confounder-class gunbrig, launched at Itchenor in February 1806. She captured several small privateers and merchantmen off the Iberian peninsula before the Royal Navy sold her in 1814. After the Navy sold her, she became the mercantile Ben Jonson.
References
Boyden, Peter B. (2001) The British Army in Cape Colony: soldiers' letters and diaries, 1806-58. (Society for Army Historical Research - Cape of Good Hope, South Africa).
Grindal, Peter (2016). Opposing the Slavers: The Royal Navy's Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade. I.B.Tauris. ASINB01MYTNUEH.
Hersee, William (1829) The Spirit of the General Letters and Orders Issued by the ... Board of Excise, for the Guidance of Officers ... from 1700 to 1827 Inclusive. ... With ... Notes
Stewart, James, Nova Scotia. Vice-Admiralty Court (1814) Reports of cases, argued and determined in the court of vice-admiralty: at Halifax, in Nova-Scotia, from the commencement of the war, in 1803, to the end of the year 1813, in the time of Alexander Croke. (London: J. Butterworth).
O'Byrne, William R. (1849) A naval biographical dictionary: comprising the life and services of every living officer in Her Majesty's navy, from the rank of admiral of the fleet to that of lieutenant, inclusive. (London: J. Murray), vol. 1.
Timperley, Charles Henry (1839). A Dictionary of Printers and Printing. London: H. Johnson.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
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