History
In December 1804, Lieutenant Daniel Shiels commissioned Forward for the Channel.
On 7 February 1806, Forward was some six or seven leagues off Dunnose, Isle of Wight when she sighted and gave chase to a French privateer lugger. After a chase of half-an-hour and some firing, the lugger struck. She was Rancune, Captain Foliot, of Cherbourg and 12 hours out of there, having taken nothing. She was pierced for 12 guns but had only four mounted; she also carried swivel guns and small arms. Two of her crew had been wounded, one dangerously. [2]
On 17 April 1807, forward, Lieutenant Shiels, captured the Danish ship Sylt. [a] In 1807, Lieutenant Richard Welsh replaced Shiels, but then in 1808, Shiels returned to command.
On 23 April 1808, during the Gunboat War, Forward towed three boats from Daphne and two from Tartarus in an attack on ten laden vessels moored at Fladstrand in Denmark. Despite coming under artillery and musket fire from a fortification, the British successfully spirited away the vessels, with five men wounded in the action.
On 2 July 1809, Forward, Lieutenant Shiels, captured the Danish fishing vessel De Hoop. [5] On 26 September 1809, Forward captured Jomfrue Sinneve Christiene, L.F. Grave, master. [6] On 1 October, Forward captured Elizabeth, Hans Olsen, master. [7] [6] On 5 October, Forward captured Stadt Odense, S. Pederson, master. [6]
Circa May 1810, Lieutenant Richard Bankes transferred from the hired armed cutter Duke of York to Forward, on the Leith station. [8] [b]
On 19 November 1811, Forward, commanded by Bankes, captured the merchant vessel Fortuna. [c] On 29 November, Bankes captured a Danish privateer. [13]
In the early evening of 6 October 1813, Lieutenant Richard Bankes received intelligence that a Danish privateer of one gun was sailing towards an anchorage about four miles from Wingo Sound near Goteborg that English merchantmen were wont to use. Forward was in company with Barbara so when Bankes set out in a boat with six or seven men, Morgan joined him in a boat with an equal handful. The British found the Dane at about 9:15 pm. The Danish vessel was armed with a howitzer and had a crew of 25 men. The British succeeded in capturing the vessel, killing five Danes and wounding the captain, a lieutenant, in their attack; British losses consisted of two men killed and three wounded, including Morgan.
Forward departed Spithead anchorage on 2 December 1814 and arrived at Port Royal on 11 February 1815, having been part of a larger convoy with Swiftsure (1804) as its flagship. [d] On 14 February, Forward, set sail from Port Royal, as it escorted the Boadicea and Dowson troop transports to the Mississippi. [e]
On 15 April 1815 she left Pensacola, and on 18 April, she moored at Apalachicola. Forward and a transport were the last remaining vessels in the vicinity of the British post at Prospect Bluff. On 15 May, they evacuated the last of the garrison there. [f] Edward Nicolls, Woodbine, and the Redstick Creek leader Josiah Francis, arrived at Amelia Island, in East Florida on 7 June 1815, [g] where rumours circulated that the officers were seeking either to obtain British possession of Florida from Spain, or at least to arm and supply the Florida factions resisting American territorial expansion. (In fact, Nicolls had been heading to the Bahamas, and had unintentionally ended up in East Florida. [h] ) On 14 June she was off Fernandina.Forward arrived in Bermuda, and disembarked her passengers on 28 June. Edward Nicolls embarked on the Forward on 29 June 'for passage to England', and disembarked at Portsmouth on 13 August 1815. [i]
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