In June 1802 Captain Charles Inglis took command.[2] On 30 August 1802 Tartar was among the British warships sharing in the capture of the French tartaneConcezione.[3]
As the British warships and their prize were sailing between the two islands of St. Domingo and Tortudo, near Port-au-Paix, they met up with the French schooner Oiseaux. She was armed with 16 guns and her crew of 60 men was under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau Druault. Loring ordered Vanguard and Tartar to escort Duquesne and Oiseau to Port Royal.[4][lower-alpha 1]
Between 20 November and 4 December 1803 Tartar was in company with Captain Loring's squadron when the squadron captured the French frigates Clorinde, Surveillante, and Vertu, the brigCerf, and the schoonerDécouverte.[8] All five were taken into British service. Surveillante had on board at her surrender General Rochambeau the commander of the French forces on Saint-Domingue.[lower-alpha 2] On 1 December the squadron detained the Hiram for a breach of the blockade of Cape Francois.[9]
In 1803 and 1804 Perkins escorted Edward Corbet to Haiti. Corbet had been appointed to liaise with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the new governor general and later first Emperor of Haiti. These missions were often less than successful.[10]
In 1804 Tartar was on the Jamaica Station under Captain Keith Maxwell, who had received promotion to post-captain on 1 May.[2] Around this time Tartar grounded in Murray's Roads, Bermuda. The tiny 4-gun schooner HMSMackerel came to Tartar's assistance, temporarily salvaging the main deck guns and bower anchor.[11]
On 31 July Tartar sighted a schooner. Maxwell set off to prevent the schooner from entering the narrow and intricate channel between the island of Saona and San Domingo where it would be difficult for him to pursue. As Tartar got closer he saw that the schooner was using her sweeps to aid her.[12] Her behaviour made Maxwell suspect that his quarry was a privateer so he pursued her until neither vessel could progress farther. At that point, Maxwell was unable to get Tartar into a position from which she could use her broadside.[12] Instead, he sent in a cutting out party in three boats. As the boats set out, their quarry fired a gun, hoisted French colours, and then opened fire on the boats. The schooner was not able to deter the attack and the British captured her with no more casualties than two men wounded. The French lost nine killed and six wounded, as well as three missing, presumed drowned when they tried to swim to shore.[12] Maxwell sent the wounded to San Domingo under flag of truce, but kept the other Frenchmen prisoners, there being no English prisoners available for exchange. The privateer was Hirondelle, under the command of Captain La Place. She was armed with ten 4-pounder guns and had been out of San Domingo for two days. She had been active during the French Revolutionary Wars and for the past two years also, having frequently escaped pursuit due to her speed.[12]
At the end of 1804, Captain Edward Hawker joined Tartar from Theseus and sailed her from Jamaica to the Halifax station. On 9 January 1805 Tartar, in company with Surveillante, captured the Spanish ship Batidor.[13]
In May 1805, Tartar dragged her anchors and drifted onto a reef, resulting in serious damage. As there were no dockyard facilities in Bermuda that could handle a large frigate, five shipwrights from Halifax volunteered to sail to Bermuda to try to refloat and repair the ship. They arrived on 7 June on board HMSCambrian and began work on 9 June. The repairs took 6 weeks and Tartar sailed from Bermuda on 28 July in the company of HMSIndian. They arrived back in Halifax on 5 August 1805.[citation needed]
On 6 May 1806 Tartar captured the American brig Romulus.[14] Then on 9 June Tartar and the 10-gun cutter Bacchus captured the Observateur, of 18 guns and 104 men, which was under the command of Captain Crozier. Observateur had sailed from Cayenne on 13 May with the brig-of-war Argus, with provisions for a four-month cruise but had not captured anything.[15] The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Observateur.[2]
On 23 August Tartar captured the Charlestown packet.[16] Later in the year Captain Hawker exchanged with Captain Stephen Poyntz of Melampus and Tartar returned to England under reduced masts as a consequence of damage she had sustained in a hurricane.[17]
Tartar was paid off in October 1807. Then between October and April 1808 she underwent repairs, which cost £18,700.[2]
In October 1807, Captain George Bettesworth took command while Tartar was fitting out at Deptford for service in the Baltic.[2] This was early in the Gunboat War between Britain and Denmark-Norway.
In what became known as the Battle of Alvøen, Tartar sailed to attack the Dutch frigate Guelderland, of thirty-six 6 and 12-pounder guns, which had been reported to be in Bergen being repaired. Guederland had been escorting a small convoy to Batavia but then had to deviate to deal with a leak that she had developed.[18]
Tartar left Leith roads on 10 May 1808 and arrived off Bergen on the 12th, but heavy fog prevented her from getting closer until three days later. Unfortunately, by the time Tartar arrived, Guelderland had sailed more than a week earlier. Bettesworth nevertheless decided to send his boats into the harbour to cut out some merchant vessels and three privateers that were there. When the boats encountered heavy fire and discovered that a heavy chain protected the ships in the harbour, they and Bettesworth returned to Tartar.[19] However, as Tartar tried to withdraw, she came attack from the schooner Odin and between three and six gunboats (accounts differ).[20] Cannon fire from the Norwegians killed Bettesworth and a midshipman, Henry FitzHugh, early in the action. A further twelve men were wounded before Tartar was able to complete her withdrawal.[21] The Norwegians lost four men,[20] and a gunboat.
Captain Joseph Baker replaced Bettesworth in May.[2] On 3 November Tartar was escorting a convoy in the Naze of Norway. She was 12 leagues (58km) off Bovenbergen (Bovbjerg, Jutland) when she sighted a sloop that after a chase of three hours she captured. The sloop was the Danish privateer Naargske Gutten, of seven 6 and 4-pounder guns and 36 men. She was quite new and only one day out from Christiansand, without having made any captures.[22] Six days later Tartar was in company with Constant when they captured Jonge Minert.[23]
On 27 July 1808, Tartar was in company with Cygnet when Cygnet captured the Dutch privateer Christiana.[24]Cygnet chased the privateer brig for nine hours before she could capture her. Christiana was a former British merchant brig now armed with twelve 12-pounder carronades and two long 9-pounder guns, and had a crew of 60 men. She had provisions for a one-month cruise and had sailed three days earlier from Christiana to intercept the homeward-bound Greenland-men off the north of Shetland.[25]
Between 11 and 16 March 1809, Tartar, Ranger, and Rose captured sundry Danish vessels in the Baltic.[26] On 13 March Tartar captured the Danish privateer Falcon, while Ranger and Rose shared by agreement.[27][lower-alpha 3]
Three days later Tartar captured Kron Prince Frederick.[29] She was carrying a cargo of spices that the British East India Company sold.[30]
Tartar shared with Orion, Superb, and Cruizer in the capture on 8 April of Vergnugen and Gustaff.[31] The next day the same four warships captured Caroline,[32] and Tartar, apparently alone, captured St Johannes.[33]
Then on 10 and 11 April, Tartar was in company with Orion, Superb and Cruizer when they captured the Danish sloop Brigetta and the Prussian galiotErwartnung.[34] At the end of the month, on 30 April, Tartar captured Charlotte, with Superb, Stately, Vanguard, Allart, Constant, Monkey, and Urgent being in sight.[35][lower-alpha 4] That same day Tartar, Superb and Constant captured Maria Dorothea.[lower-alpha 5]
On 15 May 1809, Baker and Tartar chased a Danish privateer sloop near Felixberg on the coast of Courland.[38] The sloop was armed with two 12-pounders on slides and two long 4-pounders, and carried a crew of 24. Her crew ran her ashore and then left her, taking their muskets up behind some sand hills where some local civilians joined them. Baker, concerned that the schooner might harm British trade, sent in his boats to bring her out or destroy her.[38] The British cutting out party boarded the privateer, without loss despite the small arms fire from the beach, got her off the shore, and turned her guns on the beach. While the boarding party was securing the vessel, one of the men fortunately discovered a lighted candle set in a powder cartridge in the magazine and extinguished it when it had only a half an inch to burn. The privateer's magazine contained about a hundredweight of powder; had it exploded it would have killed the boarding party.[lower-alpha 6] The prize crew then brought the sloop off.[38] The privateer was probably Felix.[27][lower-alpha 7]
On 28 October 1809 Cheerful captured Destrigheiden, Rinaldine, and a sloop, name unknown, while in the company of Tartar and Lynx. By agreement, Commander John Willoughby Marshall of Lynx and Baker of Tartar pooled their share of the prize money with that due Lieutenant Daniel Carpenter, the commander of Cheerful.[lower-alpha 8]
On 13 April 1810 Tartar captured Crown Sloop No. 9.[30] Then four days later Tartar and Nightingale were in sight when Mercurius captured Enighied.[41]
Tartar and Raleigh were in company when they captured Twende Broders on 31 July.[30]Tartar then captured Anna Maria Elizabeth and Enigheit on 6 and 7 August with Emanuel and Eliza Maria following on 11 and 10 August.[30]
Battle of Anholt
At the beginning of February 1811 Captain Maurice of the Royal Navy warned Vice Admiral Sir James Saumarez that the Danes were planning an attack on the island of Anholt, on which there was a small British garrison of which Maurice was the commander.[42] Maurice received further confirmation of the attack on 8 March. Saumarez ordered Tartar and Sheldrake to sail to Anholt to provide support. They left Yarmouth on 20 March and anchored off the north end of the island on 26 March.
The next day the British garrison sighted the invasion force off the south side of the island. Maurice marched to meet them with a battery of howitzers and 200 infantry, but was not able to forestall a landing. He therefore pulled back to prepared positions and alerted Tartar and Sheldrake that the enemy was on shore.[42] The two vessels immediately set sail, with Tartar going around one side of the island and Sheldrake the other. However, the shoals forced Tartar to swing wide, delaying her by many hours.
The Danes, who had eighteen heavy gunboats for support, had landed more than 1000 troops in the darkness and fog. They were poorly equipped and their attack was uncoordinated, with the result that the British batteries at Fort Yorke (the British base) and Massareenes stopped the assault.[42] Gunfire from Tartar and Sheldrake forced the gunboats to move off westwards.
The gunboats made their escape over the reefs while the ships had to sail around the outside.[43]Tartar chased three gunboats towards Læsø but found herself in shoal water as night approached and gave up the chase. On the way back Tartar captured two Danish transports that she had passed while chasing the gunboats; one of them had 22 soldiers on board, with a considerable quantity of ammunition, shells, and the like, while the other contained provisions.[43]Sheldrake managed to capture two gunboats.[44]
About half of the Danish invasion force managed to board fourteen gunboats on the western side of Anholt and make their escape that way.[42] The Battle of Anholt cost the British only two killed and 30 wounded. The Danes lost their commander, three other officers, and 50 men killed. The British captured, besides the wounded, five captains, nine lieutenants, and 504 rank and file, as well as three pieces of artillery, 500 muskets, and 6,000 rounds of ammunition.[42] In addition, Sheldrake's two captured gunboats resulted in another two lieutenants of the Danish Navy and 119 men falling prisoner.[43]
The Danish troops came from the 2nd Battalion of Jutland Sharp Shooters, 4th Battalion 2d Regiment Jutland Jagers, and the 4th Battalion 1st Regiment Jutland Infantry. Maurice sent a flag of truce to Jutland offering to release the prisoners on their parole not to serve until exchanged. Baker proposed that if the Danish authorities agreed to these terms, that he would take all the prisoners to Randers to exchange for the officers and crew of the sloop Pandora which had wrecked off Jutland on 13 February 1811.[43]
Because the Admiralty had declared the island of Anholt a vessel, "HMS Anholt", for administrative purposes, Tartar shared with her and Sheldrake in the head money for the battle and for gunboats No. 1 and No. 7, which Sheldrake had taken. HMS Anholt also had a schooner, the Anholt, as a tender. She had been cruising looking for enemy vessels but had returned in time to take part in the battle. All four vessels, i.e., including the island HMS Anholt, also shared in the money for the ordnance stores captured.[45] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Anholt 27 March 1811" to the remaining British survivors of the battle.
Tartar and Ethalion captured St. Helena (4 June), St. Johannes (5 June), St. Alexa (26 June), and the packet of Abo (4 July).[46] On 17 June they captured Commerce.[47] A month later, on 27 July 1811, Tartar and Ethalion were in sight when Fisgard captured St Ivan.[48] In June and July the two warships also captured the Danish galiots Nos. 7 and 9, St. Peter, St. Simeon, and the sloop Expressen.[49]
Fate
Tartar grounded on 18 August 1811 on Dagö Island off the coast of Estonia and sprang a leak. Her crew was able to refloat her but she continued to fill with water. Baker then ran her ashore on 21 August at Kahar Islet, midway between Dagö Island and the Isle of Worms; he later burnt her to prevent her capture.[50]
Ethalion rescued all her crew, who then were reassigned to other ships on the Baltic station. A court martial on 23 October honorably acquitted Captain Baker, his officers, and crew of Tartar's loss.[51]
Curiously, there are prize money notices crediting Tartar and Ethalion with the capture on 11 September of Primus.[52]
Post script
On the Sunday prior to 6 November, a Russian galiot that Tartar had captured was laying stranded at Montrose. The river had carried her and deposited her on the beach. A strong tide then lifted her, causing her to drift out to sea where she was dashed to pieces on the Ness (probably Scurdie Ness).[53]
Notes
↑ The prize money for Duquesne allocated to a seaman on the British ships, including Tartar, was 2s 11d.[7]
↑ The head money for an ordinary seaman arising out of the captures was 6s 6 d.[8]
↑ Baker received £3 14s 9d; an ordinary seaman received 11+1⁄4d.[28]
↑ An ordinary seaman received 17s 9d; a lieutenant commanding received £16 1s 1+3⁄4d.[36]
↑ The prize money for an ordinary seaman was £1 12s 4d; Baker received £251 4s 1+1⁄2d.[37]
↑ Baker considered this artifice a "dishonourable Mode of Warfare".
↑ Baker received £43 7s 6d in prize money; an ordinary seaman received 8s 7d.[28]
↑ As a result, each of the three received £29 5s 2+3⁄4d. Without the pooling Carpenter, because of his junior rank, would only have received £7 10s 5+3⁄4.[39] An ordinary seaman received 10s 9+3⁄4d.[40]
The Gunboat War was a naval conflict between Denmark–Norway and Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. The war's name is derived from the Danish tactic of employing small gunboats against the materially superior Royal Navy. In Scandinavia it is seen as the later stage of the English Wars, whose commencement is accounted as the First Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.
The Battle of Anholt was a successful British military operation under the command of James Wilkes Maurice against the Danish-held island of Anholt under the command of Jørgen Conrad de Falsen, taking place during the Gunboat War, a conflict between the United Kingdom and Denmark-Norway that was part of the wider Napoleonic Wars. It was an attempt by the Dano-Norwegians to recapture Anholt, a small Danish island off the coast of Jutland which the British had captured in 1809. Early in the Gunboat War, the Dano-Norwegians had closed their lighthouse at the easternmost point of Anholt. In January 1809, the bomb-vessel Proselyte, which the British had stationed off Anholt to act as a lighthouse, struck Anholt Reef and sank. On 18 May 1809, the 74-gun Third Rate HMS Standard, under Captain Askew Hollis, led in a squadron that also included the frigate Owen Glendower, and the vessels Avenger, Ranger, Rose, and Snipe. Together they captured the island.
Joseph Baker (1767–1817) was an officer in the Royal Navy, best known for his role in the mapping of the Pacific Northwest Coast of America during the Vancouver Expedition of 1791–1795. Mount Baker is named after him.
Franchise was launched in 1798 as a 40-gun Coquille-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her in 1803 and took her into the Royal Navy under her existing name. In the war on commerce during the Napoleonic Wars she was more protector than prize-taker, capturing many small privateers but few commercial prizes. She was also at the battle of Copenhagen. She was broken up in 1815.
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.
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 Sheldrake was a Royal Navy 16-gun Seagull-class brig-sloop. She was built in Hythe and launched in 1806. She fought in the Napoleonic Wars and at the Battle of Anholt during the Gunboat War. She was stationed in the mouth of the river Loire in 1814 after Napoleon's abdication to prevent his escape to America. She was sold in 1816.
Vice-Admiral James Wilkes Maurice was an officer of the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Unlike his contemporaries who won fame commanding ships, Maurice gained accolades for his command of a number of island fortresses.
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 Nemesis was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The French captured her in 1795 at Smyrna, but in 1796 a squadron led by Barfleur brought her out of the neutral port of Tunis. Throughout her career she served under a number of commanders who would go on to have distinguished careers. She was converted to a troopship in 1812 and was sold in 1814.
HMS Cruizer was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Stephen Teague of Ipswich and launched in 1797. She was the first ship of the class, but there was a gap of 5 years between her launch and the ordering of the next batch in October 1803; by 1815 a total of 105 other vessels had been ordered to her design. She had an eventful wartime career, mostly in the North Sea, English Channel and the Baltic, and captured some 15 privateers and warships, and many merchant vessels. She also participated in several actions. She was laid up in 1813 and the Commissioners of the Navy sold her for breaking in 1819.
Grinder was a gunboat serving as a tender, rather than a commissioned warship, to HMS Anholt, the British garrison on the island of Anholt during the Gunboat War. Grinder's origins are obscure, but the Danes captured her in 1810 and the British recaptured her in 1811. She was sold in 1832.
HMS Quebec was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate launched in 1781 and broken up in 1816. She sailed under various captains, participating in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. During these wars she captured many enemy merchantmen and smaller privateers. One action led to her men qualifying for clasp to the Naval General Service Medal.
HMS Patriot was a Dutch schuyt that the Royal Navy captured in 1808 and took into service. She captured several enemy vessels before she was converted to a water vessel in 1813. The Admiralty sold her in 1815.
HMS Pandora was launched in 1806. She captured two privateers before she was wrecked in February 1811 off the coast of Jutland.
HMS Pert was the French privateer Bonaparte, a ship built in the United States that HMS Cyane captured in November 1804. The Royal Navy took Bonaparte into service as HMS Pert. Pert was wrecked off the coast of what is now Venezuela in October 1807.
HMS Snake was a British Royal Navy ship launched in 1797 as the only member of her class of brig-sloops. She captured or destroyed two French privateers and one Danish privateer. She also captured numerous small merchantmen, but spent time escorting convoys to and from the West Indies. She was sold in 1816.
HMS Avenger was the collier Thames, launched in 1803, that the Royal Navy purchased in 1804 and renamed. During her service she captured a number of prizes. She also captured one French privateer and participated in the capture of the Danish island of Anholt. She wrecked at St. John's, Newfoundland on 8 October 1812.
John Macpherson Ferguson (1783–1855) was a Scot serving in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, mainly in command of HMS Mersey, who rose to the rank of Rear Admiral.
The Narcissus-class frigate was a 32-gun, 18-pounder fifth-rate frigate class of five ships of the Royal Navy. Designed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir John Henslow, the class was created to make use of shipyards that could not construct larger frigates. They were similar in design to the preceding 32-gun frigate class, the Amphion class, but were slightly shorter. Two ships were initially constructed, with a later batch of three being ordered in response to an Admiralty request for the resumption of production of proven frigate designs. The final two ships of the class were cancelled when the shipyard they were being constructed at went bankrupt. Unlike her sister ships, the name ship of the class Narcissus was armed with experimental short 24 pounders rather than 18 pounders.
Wright, Phillip, ed. (2002). Lady Nugent's journal of her residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805. Barbados: The University of the West Indies Press. ISBN978-976-640-128-3. OCLC975768653.
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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