The Mediterranean in wartime
Redwing was built by Matthew Warren at Brightlingsea, Essex, and launched on 30 August 1806. She was commissioned in October 1806 under Commander Thomas Ussher, and on 31 January 1807, sailed for the Mediterranean. [4] There she was stationed in the Strait of Gibraltar, and operated in company with Scout and Morgiana to clear the area of enemy vessels. The Commander in Chief, Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood, in a letter to William Marsden, dated 24 May 1807, praised their effectiveness, noting that "within this Fortnight past they have taken and destroyed Eighteen of the Enemy's Vessels". [5] One of these may have been the mistico Tiger, which Redwing intercepted as she was sailing from Cadiz to Algeciras. Redwing sent her into Gibraltar. [6]
Numerous captures and actions followed.
- On 13 June 1807 Redwing and Scout chased a felucca and the Spanish privateer De Bon Vassallio, which mounted one 24 and two 6-pounder guns, into the mouth of the River Barbate, south of Cadiz. They then sent their boats to board and destroy the privateer. They also captured and destroyed two signal posts. [7]
- On 22 September, Redwing and two boats from Excellent captured the merchant ship Paulina, and on 3 October 1807 Redwing took the Twillingen. [8]
- On 2 March 1808 Redwing and Confounder captured the American ship Ocean, and on 12 April 1808 Redwing and Minorca captured the American ship Hope. [9]
- In early 1808, or so, Redwing captured the Charlotta, Ferrier, master, which had sailed from La Guayra, and sent her into Gibraltar. [10]
- On 7 May, she attacked a Spanish convoy of seven gun-boats and armed vessels, and 12 unarmed merchantmen off Cape Trafalgar. In a short but vigorous action she drove four gun-boats ashore and sank them, captured one, and two escaped. The gunboats sunk included Diligent, of two 24-pounder guns, two 8-pounders, and 60 men, Boreas of the same strength, No. 3, of two 24-pounders, one 36-pounder and 36 men, and No. 6, of one 24-pounder and 40 men. Redwing also captured a mistico of four 6-pounders and 20 men. Gunboat No. 107, of two 6-poundrs and 35 men, and a felucca of four 3-pounders and 20 men, escaped. Redwing then sank four of the merchantmen and captured seven; one escaped. [4] [11] [12] Redwing lost one man killed and had three men wounded, one severely. For this action in 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasp "Redwing 7 May 1808" to the seven still surviving claimants from the action.
At the end of the month, Redwing engaged in another medal-winning action. She chased a mistico and two feluccas into the Bay of Bolonia (Tarifa). There her quarry took shelter under a shore battery of six 24-pounder guns. Ussher brought Redwing to anchor within point-blank range of the battery, using her broadsides to silence its guns. A cutting-out party under Lieutenant Ferguson then destroyed the mistico and extracted the feluccas. Ussher and Ferguson, with a landing party of 40 men, then captured the battery and spiked its guns. This, and his previous actions, led to Ussher's promotion to post captain. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the NGSM with clasp "Redwing 31 May 1808" to the five surviving claimants from the action.
Commander Edward Augustus Down then took command of Redwing in August and sailed her to the Mediterranean on 23 September 1808.
- On 8 February 1809, the boats of Redwing and the frigate Amphion, under the command of William Hoste, cut out an armed brig and a coaster at Melada in Dalmatia, then part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. [4] [14] [15]
- On 16 September 1811 Redwing, captured the French 4-gun privateer, Le Victorieux, off Sicily, three days out of Tunis. [4] [16]
- On 8 May 1812, off Cape St. Vieto, Redwing took a small Neapolitan privateer of one gun. [17]
Command of Redwing passed to Commander Sir John Gordon Sinclair in August 1812 and she operated off the south coast of France, taking part in numerous operations:
- On 18 March 1813, seamen and marines of Redwing, under the command of Lieutenant Aaron Tozer, landed on the French coast and destroyed a coastal battery consisting of four 24-pounder guns, a 6-pounder field-gun, and a 13-inch mortar at Carry-le-Rouet, west of Marseille, before capturing a tartane, anchored nearby. [18]
- On 31 March 1813, an attack was made, under the command of Lieutenant Shaw of Volontaire, by the marines of the frigates Volontaire and Undaunted, and the brigs Redwing and Shearwater on a strongpoint at Morgion, near Marseille. The marines landed during the night, and at daybreak captured two batteries. They threw the guns, five 36-pounders in one, and two 24-pounders in the other, into the sea, and destroyed all their ammunition. The boats of the ships then captured eight tartanes and three settees, laden with oil, nuts, hides and firewood, while Redwing provided close protection. Casualties amounted to only one man killed and four wounded, while the French lost four killed, five wounded, and a lieutenant and 16 men of the 62nd Regiment taken prisoner. [18]
- On 3 April, Nautilus and Redwing captured the Greek vessel St. Nicolo, and took her into Malta. [19]
- On 2 May boats from Redwing, Undaunted, Volontaire, and Repulse again stormed the batteries at Morgion. This action led the Admiralty to issue Redwing a third clasp, marked "2 May Boat Service 1813", to the NGSM for her part in this action. [4]
- On 24 May Redwing, Nautilus and Carlotta captured the privateer Columbo. [lower-alpha 1]
- On 18 August, a landing party made up of men from Redwing, Espoir, and the frigate Undaunted, stormed shore batteries at Cassis, east of Marseille, [4] and captured three pinnaces. [21]
- On 14 December 1813, Redwing captured the Boa Fe Nova. [22] This may be the same vessel as the Boa Fé Saltaza, which had been sailing from Rio de Janeiro to Oporto and which Redwing captured and sent into Portsmouth some days later. [23]
HMS Euryalus was a Royal Navy 36-gun Apollo-class frigate, which 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 Apollo, the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a fifth-rate frigate of the Lively class, carrying 38 guns, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1856.
HMS Reindeer was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Samuel & Daniel Brent at Rotherhithe and was launched in 1804. She was built of fir, which made for more rapid construction at the expense of durability. Reindeer fought in the Napoleonic Wars before succumbing in 1814 to the guns of USS Wasp during the War of 1812.
HMS Cerberus was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars in the Channel, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and even briefly in the Baltic against the Russians. She participated in one boat action that won for her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She also captured many privateers and merchant vessels. Her biggest battle was the Battle of Lissa, which won for her crew another clasp to the NGSM. She was sold in 1814.
HMS Weazel was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, launched in 1805 at Topsham, Devon. She saw active service in and around the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars resulting in her crews earning three clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, was decommissioned in 1815, and was sold for breaking in 1825.
The trabàccolo, trabaccalo, trabacalo or trabakul, is a type of Adriatic Sea sailing coaster. The name comes from the word trabacca, which means tent, which in turn recalls the vessel's sails. The trabàccolo was a typical Venetian boat-form that dates back to the first half of the 15th century and that spread throughout the Adriatic. Built of oak and larch, trabàccoli were slow but reliable cargo vessels ranging between 50 and 200 deadweight tons. They had round bows and sterns, and were wide, compact, and with good stowage. Other characteristics included a large rudder that extended below the depth of the keel, two masts with lug sails and rigging, a bowsprit, and a carved and colorfully painted stern. The usual such vessel was about 20 metres long, with a breadth equal to about a third of the length. Typically a trabàccolo would have a crew of 10 to 20 sailors.
HMS Hyacinth was an 18-gun ship-sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, launched in 1806 at Great Yarmouth. In 1810 she was reclassed as a 20-gun Post-ship. She was again re-rated as 24 guns in 1817. Hyacinth took part in some notable actions on the coast of Spain, one of which earned qualified in 1817 for the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1820.
HMS Belette was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by King at Dover and launched on 21 March 1806. During the Napoleonic Wars she served with some success in the Baltic and the Caribbean. Belette was lost in the Kattegat in 1812 when she hit a rock off Læsø.
HMS Scout was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Peter Atkinson & Co. at Hull and launched in 1804. She participated in a number of actions and captured several privateers in the Mediterranean during the Napoleonic Wars. The Navy sold her in 1827. In 1829 she reappeared as the British Southern Whale Fisheries whaler Diana. Diana made three voyages for Daniel Bennett & Son until condemned after an on-board explosion in April 1843 towards the end of her fourth voyage.
Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Ussher KCH CB was an Anglo-Irish officer of the British Royal Navy who served with distinction during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and who in 1814 conveyed Napoleon Bonaparte into exile in Elba. He was nicknamed Undaunted Ussher.
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 Undaunted was a Lively-class fifth-rate 38-gun sailing frigate of the British Royal Navy, built during the Napoleonic Wars, which conveyed Napoleon to his first exile on the island of Elba in early 1814.
HMS Minorca was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1805. She served during the Napoleonic Wars in the Mediterranean and was broken up after an uneventful career.
HMS Express was the name-ship of a class of two schooner-rigged advice-boats of the Royal Navy. Express was launched in 1800 and served until she was sold in 1813. During her career she served in one action and one campaign that in 1847 qualified her surviving crew members for clasps to the Naval General Service Medal.
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 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.
HMS Morne Fortunee was the French privateer Regulus that British Royal Navy captured in 1804. In 1806 the Royal Navy commissioned her. She captured some small privateers and took part in a number of other engagements. She foundered in 1809.
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 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.
HMS Royalist was launched in 1807. She captured many privateers and letters of marque, most French, but also some from Denmark and the United States. Her crew twice were awarded the Naval General Service Medal. She was instrumental in the capture of a French frigate. The Royal Navy sold her in 1819. She then became a whaler, making three complete voyages. She was condemned after a mishap while on her fourth.
HMS Growler was a Archer-class gun-brig built for the British Royal Navy and launched in 1804. She captured several French privateers and one Danish privateer, and took part in two actions that earned her crew the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She was sold in 1815.
United Kingdom
