Prince Adolphus (1795 ship)

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History
British-Red-Ensign-1707.svgGreat Britain
NamePrince Adolphus
Namesake Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge
BuilderFalmouth
Launched1795
Captured1813
General characteristics
Tons burthen180 (bm)
Complement31 (at capture)
Armament8 guns (at capture)

Prince Adolphus was launched in 1795 at Falmouth, Cornwall as a packet sailing for the Post Office Packet Service. She was involved in two notable incidents. In 1798, a French privateer captured her, but Prince Adolphus was ransomed in a transaction that required an amendment to a Bill before Parliament. In 1805 her crew mutinied in Falmouth before she set off on a cruise. The mutiny, subsequently joined by the crew of another packet, led the Post Office temporarily to move the packet service from Falmouth to Plymouth. An American privateer captured Prince Adolphus in 1812.

Contents

Career

Capture

On 9 June 1798 a French privateer of 14 or 18 guns captured Prince Adolphus as she was sailing from Lisbon to Falmouth. [1] [2] The next report was that she had been purchased and had arrived back at Lisbon. [3] The privateer was Tigre, of Morlaix. [lower-alpha 1] Her captain took off the captain and crew, except for the steward, but let the passengers (General and Mrs. Pigot, 20 army officers, and ten others) remained after they gave him their word that they would not attempt to recapture Prince Adolphus. The privateer offered to ransom Prince Adolphus for £8000, but her captain refused. A prize crew of a prize master, four men, and six boys then took over the packet with orders to steer to the nearest Spanish port. After three days at sea, the passengers negotiated with the prize master who agreed that in return for $17,000, he would take Prince Adolphus to Lisbon. She arrived there on 23 June. [6] Prince Adolphus, Captain Henry Fenner, arrived back at Falmouth on 24 September.

The story is a little more complex. The only officer of Prince Adolphus's crew that the privateer left aboard her was the surgeon, Mr. Bullock. It was he who negotiated with the prize master and promised that the Post Office would pay when she reached Lisbon. (The price he negotiated, $17,000, which translated to about £4000, i.e., half the amount the privateer captain had proposed.) At Lisbon the agent for the packet service informed Bullock that Parliament had just passed a law declaring it high treason to remit money to any person owing obedience to the French government and that they would be subject to being hanged, drawn, and quartered if they paid the money. The agent contacted the Postmaster General, who consulted with various ministers. The decision was to pay the promised amount and that a clause would be inserted in a forthcoming Act of Parliament indemnifying all concerned in the transaction. The prize master was paid and he and his men left, full of praise for the honourable treatment they had received; the prize master wrote to the French Minister of Marine asking that Captain Boulderson be immediately released, which occurred. [7]

Captain John Boulderson, Jr. was appointed on 24 August 1803 to command Prince Adolphus. [8]

Mutiny

On 24 October 1810, Prince Adolphus and Duke of Marlborough were preparing to sail from Falmouth when the Tide-surveyor, of His Majesty's Customs, came on board with some men. The officials searched the crews' chests and confiscated the "little adventures" they found. The little adventures were items the crew had purchased for resale abroad to augment their salaries. Wages in the packet service had been stagnant for a number of years despite the price inflation that had developed during the Napoleonic Wars. [9]

Earlier, on 15 August 1810, a deputation of two men from each packet had presented the Post Office agent with a petition for an increase in wages, pay parity throughout the service, and the restoration of private venturing. The Service had come to no decision by 24 August. [10]

After the seizure of their ventures, the crews of both Prince Adolphus and Duke of Marlborough stopped work, and the departures were delayed. When the crews would not comply with the Saverland's (the packet agent) entreaties, he withdrew their protections from impressment. Captain Slade, of HMS Experiment came on board and pressed 26 men. Only 10 days earlier, Duke of Marlborough had fought off an attack by a privateer, at a cost of four men wounded; some time later the Post Master General awarded Duke of Marlborough's crew a bonus of four months pay and some "smart money". So in less than two weeks, the men had gone from being heroes to being pressed into the Royal Navy. [11]

The crews of nine more packets deserted their vessels and took to the countryside to avoid being pressed. Of the 26 men who had been pressed, one was released, but the remaining 25 were put on HMS Mariner for carriage to the fleet in the Mediterranean. On the 25th, Duke of Marlborough sailed for Lisbon, with seamen from Experiment having replaced the impressed crew members. Experiment could not spare any more men to crew Prince Adolphus. Still, other naval vessels were given the task of carrying the mails. [12]

Two men, not from the packet service and so not mutineers, carried the packetmen's message to London. There the authorities temporarily jailed them, temporarily because the Lord Mayor of London had exceeded his authority. Between 1 and 4 November, three packets returned to service, with Prince Adolphus sailing for Jamaica. [13]

Still, Saveland was ordered on 2 November to transfer the remaining packets to Plymouth. On 5 and 6 November, the Navy escorted eight packets remaining at Falmouth to Plymouth. However, Plymouth was completely occupied with supporting the Navy. The move to Plymouth was not successful, and between 13 and 15 February 1813, all thirteen packets at Plymouth returned to Falmouth. eventually things returned to normal. [14]

Fate

The American schooner privateer Governor McKean, Lucey, master, captured Prince Adolphus, Boulderston, master, on 9 August 1812 at 24°48′N63°8′W / 24.800°N 63.133°W / 24.800; -63.133 . [lower-alpha 3] Prince Adolphus was coming from Martinique, bound for Falmouth, with Demerara's governor, paymaster (or postmaster), and collector as passengers. [lower-alpha 4] She had left Demerara on 19 July. She arrived at Philadelphia on 28 August. [16] United States' press accounts reported that Prince Adolphus was armed with eight guns and had a complement of 36 men. [17]

Prince Adolphus's entry in the 1813 volume of LR carried the annotation "Captured". [18]

Notes

  1. ↑ Tigre is probably a privateer of unknown homeport, of 55 men and 8 guns, that HMS Naiad captured on 11 August 1798. [4] British records show that Tigre was under the command of Stephen Bonaventure Aggaret. She was armed with eight 4-pounder guns and eight swivels. She had a crew of 31 men, having put another 22 men aboard the prizes that she had taken in the eight days since she had left Groire. [5]
  2. ↑ On 26 January 1813 HMS Rover captured Governor M'Kean, of 112 ton (bm), one gun, and 16 men, which had been sailing from Philadelphia to Bordeaux with a cargo of cotton and bees' wax. [15]
  3. ↑ At the time that she captured Prince Adolphus, Governor M'Kean was armed with five guns and had a crew of 65 men under the command of Captain Alexander Lucet. [lower-alpha 2]
  4. ↑ The governor may have been the incumbent, Hugh Lyle Carmichael, but was more probably his predecessor, William Henry Betinck, returning to Britain.

Citations

  1. ↑ "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 3015. 29 June 1798. hdl:2027/uc1.c3049069.
  2. ↑ "News". Observer (London, England), 1 July 1798; Issue 341.
  3. ↑ "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 3016. 6 July 1798. hdl:2027/uc1.c3049069.
  4. ↑ Demerliac (2003), p. 322, no. 3085.
  5. ↑ "No. 15055". The London Gazette . 1 September 1798. p. 825.
  6. ↑ "News". Lloyd's Evening Post (London, England), 4 – 6 July 1798; Issue 6374.
  7. ↑ Norway (1895), pp. 77–79.
  8. ↑ Howat (1984), p. 21.
  9. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), p. 98.
  10. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), p. 99.
  11. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), pp. 102–103.
  12. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), p. 104.
  13. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), p. 106.
  14. ↑ Pawlyn (2003), pp. 106–108.
  15. ↑ "No. 16715". The London Gazette . 27 March 1813. pp. 628–629.
  16. ↑ "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 4706. 29 September 1812. hdl:2027/uc1.c2735025.
  17. ↑ Good (2012), p. 49.
  18. ↑ LR (1813), Seq. No.P466.

Related Research Articles

The Post Office Packet Service dates to Tudor times and ran until 1823, when the Admiralty assumed control of the service. Originally, the Post Office used packet ships to carry mail packets to and from British embassies, colonies and outposts. The vessels generally also carried bullion, private goods and passengers. The ships were usually lightly armed and relied on speed for their security. However, Britain was at war almost continuously during the 18th and early 19th centuries with the result that packet ships did get involved in naval engagements with enemy warships and privateers, and were occasionally captured.

Princess Amelia (1799 packet)

Princess Amelia was launched in 1799 and became a packet for the British Post Office Packet Service, sailing from Falmouth, Cornwall. She sailed to North America, the West Indies, Mediterranean, and Brazil. In 1800 a French privateer captured her, but she returned to the packet service later the same year. Joshua Barney, in the American privateer Rossie, captured her on 16 September 1812, at the start of the War of 1812. The United States Navy took her into service as HMS Georgia, but then renamed her USS Troup. She served as a guardship at Savannah; the Navy sold her in 1815.

HMS <i>Rover</i> (1808) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

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.

Snake was probably launched in Spain in 1802 and was a prize that came into British hands in 1808. Her first owner employed her a privateer, but in 1810 sold her. Thereafter she sailed between London or Plymouth and the Cape of Good Hope (CGH), or between 1809 and 1816 in the Post Office Packet Service from Falmouth. Afterwards she sailed between London and South America. She was last listed in 1824.

Little Catherine was launched in 1801 at Bermuda, probably under another name. She was condemned in prize in May 1809 at Barbados and entered British registry that year. At that time she traded between Liverpool and Africa. In 1813 she became a temporary packet sailing for the Post Office Packet Service from Falmouth, Cornwall. In 1813 the French Navy captured her and abandoned her after taking off her crew. The Royal Navy recovered her three days later. In 1814 an American privateer captured her but the Royal Navy recaptured her within two weeks. Her owner refused to pay salvage and turned her over to the Post Office which returned her to use as a Falmouth packet but renamed her Blucher, in honour of Prince Blucher who had helped defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. The government sold Blucher in 1823. New owners returned her to the name Little Catherine and she continued to sail widely until she was last listed in 1845, having been sold to a Chinese owner. She was wrecked in October 1847.

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Duke of Montrose was a Falmouth packet launched in 1804. She participated in six single-ship actions. During the Napoleonic Wars she captured a French naval schooner but a year or so later a French privateer captured her. She returned to British hands some nine months later. During the War of 1812 she was able to drive off American privateers twice. An American frigate captured her in 1813 but gave her up to her crew, also putting onboard the crews of other vessels the frigate had captured. Then a French frigate also captured her and gave her up after disarming her. She was wrecked at Barbados in 1815.

Herald, of Jersey, Thomas Peckslock, master, acquired a letter of marque on 15 January 1798.

Queen Charlotte was built in Emsworth in 1801. She was a regular packet ship for the Post Office Packet Service, sailing out of Falmouth. She made several voyages across the Atlantic between late 1802 and 16 May 1805 when she was captured. She came back into British hands around 1806. The Post Office took her into temporary service between 1812 and 1817. In 1815, she was involved in a friendly fire incident. She then became a whaler off Peru in 1818. She remained in the Pacific Coast of South America until she was condemned there in 1820 as unseaworthy; she was last listed that same year. She may have been repaired and have continued to trade on the coast until 1822.

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Lady Mary Pelham was launched in 1811 as a packet based in Falmouth, Cornwall for the Post Office Packet Service. She repelled attack by privateers in 1812 and 1813, the latter being a notable and controversial engagement with an American privateer. Another American privateer captured her in February 1815 in the West Indies. New owners retained her name and between 1815 and at least 1824 she continued to sail to the Continent and South America.

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Express Packet was built in France in 1807, probably under another name, and taken in prize circa 1808. From 1809 she sailed as a packet for the Post Office Packet Service out of Falmouth, Cornwall. In 1812 an American privateer captured her in a notable single ship action, but then returned her to her captain and crew after plundering her. Express stopped sailing as a packet in 1817 and then made one more voyage to Spain, after which she disappeared from online records.

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Mary Ann was launched in 1807 at Liverpool. She made one voyage as a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people. She then became a West Indiaman. From 1811 she became a Falmouth packet. In 1813 a United States privateer captured her.

HMS Pioneer was a Pigmy–class schooner of the Royal Navy, launched in 1810 as a cutter. During her service with the Navy she captured one French privateer and assisted at the capture of another. In 1823–1824 she underwent fitting for the Coast Guard blockade. She then served with the Coast Guard to 1845. She was sold at Plymouth in 1849.

References

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