Packet
As a packet, Princess Amelia sailed from Falmouth on numerous voyages to Jamaica, to the Mediterranean, and to Brazil.
On 14 May 1800 a French privateer captured Princess Amelia packet, Richard Stevens, master, as she was returning from the Leeward Islands, and took her into Bordeaux. [2] The privateer was Decide, or Grande Decide of Bordeaux. [lower-alpha 1] On 12 October 1800 the Danish vessel Two Sisters, Gardrund, master, came into Falmouth from Bordeaux, in ballast. Two Sisters was the former Princess Amelia packet. [4] The Packet Service took Princess Amelia back into service. On 17 December 1800 Princess Amelia, G. Bryant, master, sailed from Falmouth for Jamaica.
On 18 December 1800 Grantham Packet, Bull, master, was going to Jamaica from Falmouth was wrecked on the Mendham Shoals off Barbados. The people aboard her were rescued. [5] The Post Office hired Caroline to carry the passengers and mail that Grantham Packet was to carry to England, but Caroline was wrecked at Jamaica before she could leave for England. Princess Amelia Packet, Bryant, master, took the passengers and mail to Falmouth, leaving Jamaica on 8 February and arriving at Falmouth on 22 March. [6] [7]
Princess Amelia twice had to go into quarantine at Falmouth because of deaths due to fever. Princess Amelia, Richard Stevens, master, left Tortola on 19 January 1805 and arrived at Falmouth on 10 February. Because two crew members had died of fever on the passage she went into quarantine on her arrival. In 1807 Captain Stevens and eight crew members died of yellow fever at Jamaica. Princess Amelia arrived at Falmouth on 11 January 1808. [9]
Princess Amelia Packet arrived in Falmouth on 2 July 1811, having sailed from Jamaica in April. In August 1812 she left Bridgetown, Barbados, [11] for St. Thomas. From there she sailed for England. It was on this voyage back to Falmouth that she encountered Rossie.
Rossie was armed with ten 12-pounder guns and one long 9-pounder on a pivot, and had a crew of 95; Princess Amelia was armed with four 6-pounders and two 9-pounders, and had a crew of 27 or 28. Princess Amelia had to strike after she had lost three men killed, including her captain, Isaac Moorsom, and her sailing master, John Nankivell, and 11 men wounded. (Some of the wounded may have died later as a report on her arrival in Savannah gives her casualties as six dead and six or seven wounded.) American casualties were seven men wounded, one of them, the first lieutenant, severely. [lower-alpha 2] [lower-alpha 3]
Rossie sent her prize into Savannah, Georgia. American sources reported that Princess Amelia's passengers had expressed their thanks for the polite treatment they received from Captain Barney. [lower-alpha 4]
HMS Pickle was a topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, of six guns, that Lord Hugh Seymour purchased to use as a tender on the Jamaica station. Pickle was at the Battle of Trafalgar, and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
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.
Proserpine was a 38-gun Hébé-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1785 that HMS Dryad captured on 13 June 1796. The Admiralty commissioned Proserpine into the Royal Navy as the fifth rate, HMS Amelia. She spent 20 years in the Royal Navy, participating in numerous actions in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing a number of prizes, and serving on anti-smuggling and anti-slavery patrols. Her most notable action was her intense and bloody, but inconclusive, fight in 1813 with the French frigate Aréthuse. Amelia was broken up in December 1816.
HMS Dryad was a fifth-rate sailing frigate of the Royal Navy that served for 64 years, at first during the Napoleonic Wars and then in the suppression of slavery. She fought in a notable single-ship action in 1796 when she captured the French frigate Proserpine, an action that would later earn her crew the Naval General Service Medal. Dryad was broken up at Portsmouth in 1860.
HMS Epervier was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Ross at Rochester, England, and launched on 2 December 1812. USS Peacock captured her in 1814 and took her into service. USS Epervier disappeared in 1815 while carrying dispatches reporting the signing of a treaty with the Dey of Algiers.
HMS Brilliant was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Brilliant was first commissioned in July 1779 under the command of Captain John Ford.
Rossie was a schooner launched at Baltimore in 1807. At the outbreak of the War of 1812 she became a privateer, operating under a letter of marque. She made two voyages, the first as a privateer, and the less successful second as a letter of marque. The British captured her in January 1813.
The French brig Suffisante was launched in 1793 for the French Navy. In 1795 the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service under her existing name. HMS Suffisante captured seven privateers during her career, as well as recapturing some British merchantmen and capturing a number of prizes, some of them valuable. She was lost in December 1803 when she grounded in poor weather in Cork harbour.
Several ships have been named Princess Amelia:
Hibernia, of 435 tons, was launched at Cowes in 1810. She operated as a letter of marque West Indiaman and in 1814 engaged in a noteworthy single-ship action with the American privateer Comet during which she repelled her more heavily-armed attacker. In 1819 she transported convicts to Van Diemen's Land. She was last listed in 1840.
Windsor Castle was launched at Yarmouth in 1804. She spent her entire 11-year career as a Falmouth packet, primarily on the Falmouth–Halifax–New York–Halifax–Falmouth route and the Falmouth–Leeward Islands–Falmouth route. She also sailed on some other voyages. She was involved in two notable single-ship actions. In the first, in 1807, she captured her attacker, a French privateer schooner, in a sanguinary encounter. In the second, in 1815, an American privateer captured her. A prize crew took her into Norfolk, Virginia, where she was sold at auction.
Minerva was the French letter of marque Minerve, a former privateer from Bordeaux, that the Royal Navy captured in September 1804. Samuel Enderby & Sons purchased her c.1805 for use as a whaler. She was taken off the coast of Peru circa August 1805 after a crewman had killed her captain and her crew had mutinied.
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.
Bona was launched in 1809 at Baltimore. After the outbreak of war with the United Kingdom, Bona took to the sea twice. On her first voyage she cruised as a privateer, engaged in two actions, one of which resulted in taking a merchantman that she had to abandon. Her owners next sent her out as a letter of marque. During this voyage the British captured Bona.
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.
Caroline was a ship launched in France in 1792, possibly under another name. She was taken in prize in 1794 and sailed first as a West Indiaman, then as a whaler in the British southern whale fishery, and finally as a slave ship in the triangular trade in enslaved people. She was lost in 1801, after she had delivered her captives to Kingston, Jamaica on her second voyage from Africa.
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.
HMS Barbadoes was originally a French privateer and then slave ship named Brave or Braave. A British slave ship captured her in September 1803. In 1803–1804 she became the British privateer Barbadoes for a few months. In 1804 the inhabitants of Barbados purchased her and donated her to the Royal Navy, which took her into service as HMS Barbadoes. She wrecked on 27 September 1812.
Mon Oncle Thomas was a three-masted privateer from La Rochelle. She was possibly the former Spanish Rosa, of 300 to 350 tonnes, captured in 1793. From at least 1799 on she made four cruises as a privateer. She participated in the short-lived recapture of the island of Gorée from the British. She made several highly profitable captures and engaged in at least one successful single-ship action. The British Royal Navy captured her in late 1804.
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.
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