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HMS Thames (1758)
Encyclopedia
HMS Thames was a 32-gun Richmond-class
Richmond class frigate
The Richmond-class frigates were 32-gun sailing frigates of the fifth rate produced for the Royal Navy. They were designed in 1756 by the Navy's Surveyor, William Bately, and were his equivalent of the s designed by Bately's co-Surveyor, Thomas Slade. They were faster ships than the Southamptons,...
fifth-rate
Fifth-rate
In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail, a fifth rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based on size and firepower.-Rating:...
frigate of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
built by Henry Adams and launched at Bucklers Hard in 1758. She served in several wars, including for some four years in French service (as Tamise) after her capture. She was recaptured in 1796 and was broken up in 1803.
British service
Thames was commissioned in April 1758. On 18 May 1759, she assisted in the capture of the French frigate Aréthuse, which was comissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS ArethusaHMS Arethusa (1759)
The Aréthuse was a French frigate, launched in 1757 during the Seven Years' War. She was subsequently captured by the Royal Navy and became the fifth-rate HMS Arethusa.Aréthuse was built at Le Havre for privateer warfare, as Pélerine...
. She was deployed in the Mediterranean from August 1763 and paid off in March 1766 after wartime service.
She was repaired and recommissioned in October 1770 for the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
dispute. She participated in the Spithead Review of 22 June 1773, and in a mission to Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
in 1774. Paid off in July 1775, she was recommissioned in August 1776, and then paid off again in September 1782 after wartime service.
After several repairs at various times, she was recommissioned under Captain Thomas Troubridge
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet was a British naval commander and politician.Troubridge was educated at St Paul's School, London. He entered the Royal Navy in 1773 and, together with Nelson, served in the East Indies in the frigate Seahorse. In 1785 he returned to England in the Sultan as...
in June 1790. She was again paid off, repaired and refitted.
Capture
On 24 October 1793, while sailing to Gibraltar under Captain James Cotes, she met Jean-François TartuJean-François Tartu
Jean-François Tartu was a French Navy officer, and hero of the French Revolution....
's Uranie, off Gascony. In the ensuing engagement she lost her rigging and most of her starboard battery, yet killed Tartu and forced Uranie to disengage. The next day the frigate Carmagnole, under Zacharie Allemand
Zacharie Allemand
Zacharie Jacques Théodore Allemand, was a French admiral.- Early career :Allemand was born to a captain of the East Indian Company. Orphaned at an early age, he started his sailing career at 12 as an apprentice on Superbe, an East Indiaman...
, and accompanying vessels, captured Thames, which was essentially a defenseless hulk. She was brought into French service as Tamise.
French service and recapture
Tamise was entrusted to Captain Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermitte, who ordered some technical improvements. She went for two short cruises in the Channel where she succeeded in taking 22 British merchant vessels of various sizes. She also escaped a British squadron that ignored her because of her British construction lines. She was then the admiral's frigate, repeating orders, in Villaret de Joyeuse's fleet. She was charged with the reconnaissance of Lord Howe's fleet in the morning of the Glorious First of JuneGlorious First of June
The Glorious First of June [Note A] of 1794 was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars...
1794.
Under the command of Captain Fradin, Tamise took part in the disastrous campaign of "Grand Hiver" while still with Villaret Joyeuse's fleet. She also was sent on three individual chasing campaigns making several seizures and taking part in three inconclusive individual fights.
On 8 June 1796 Tamise was cruising with the in the approaches to the Channel when they encountered the British frigates, Santa Margarita
HMS Santa Margarita (1779)
HMS Santa Margarita was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had been built for service with the Spanish Navy, but was captured after five years in service, eventually spending nearly 60 years with the British.-Spanish career:...
and Unicorn
HMS Unicorn (1794)
HMS Unicorn was a 32-gun fifth-rate Pallas-class frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Chatham. This frigate served in both the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, including a medal action early in her career...
, which chased the two French frigates. Unicorn captured Tribune, and Santa Margarita captured Tamise. The Royal Navy reinstated Tamise under her old name as HMS Thames.
British service again
Thames was recommissioned in December 1796 under Captain William LukinWilliam Lukin
Vice-Admiral William Lukin, later William Lukin Windham was a Royal Navy officer who rose to the rank of Vice Admiral and served with great distinction through the Napoleonic Wars. Eventually he inherited the house and estates of William Windham.-Early life:William Lukin was born in the village of...
and in June sailed for Jamaica. In April - May 1797 she was caught up in the Spithead and Nore mutinies
Spithead and Nore mutinies
The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. There were also discontent and minor incidents on ships in other locations in the same year. They were not violent insurrections, being more in the nature of strikes, demanding better pay and conditions...
. However, Lukin managed her well during this period and she was one of the first vessels to sail after the suppression of the mutiny. In the second half of 1797, Thames captured a small barge of one gun, name unknown, on the Jamaica station.
On 12 May 1800, Thames, Clyde and the hired armed cutter Suwarrow
Hired armed cutter Black Joke
The hired armed cutter Black Joke was a cutter of ten 6-pounder guns and 9886/94 tons burthen that served the Royal Navy from 12 January 1795 to 19 October 1801...
captured a French chasse maree, name unknown. On 1 June, Thames was a part of a squadron detached from Channel fleet to Quiberon
Quiberon
Quiberon is a commune in the Morbihan department in Brittany in north-western France.It is situated on the southern part of the Quiberon peninsula, the northern part being the commune of Saint-Pierre-Quiberon...
Bay and the Morbihan. On 4 June Thames, and some smaller vessels attacked the south-west end of Quiberon where the silenced the forts, which a landing party of troops later destroyed.
On 26 October Thames encountered a French privateer at about 9:30 in the morning. Thames pursued her quarry for five hours. During the pursuit they came upon , which joined in. The two British vessels finally captured the ship Diable à Quatre some 36 leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
from the Cordouan lighthouse
Cordouan lighthouse
Cordouan lighthouse is an active lighthouse located 7 km at sea, near the mouth of the Gironde estuary in France. At a height of it is the tenth tallest "traditional lighthouse" in the world....
. She was armed with sixteen 6 and 12-pounder guns and had a crew of 150 men. She was only one day out of Bordeaux.
On 29 October, Thames and Immortalite chased a French letter of marque
Letter of marque
In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...
schooner all day. They finally captured her and found that she had been sailing from Guadaloupe to Bordeaux with a cargo of coffee.
A little over a month later, on 30 November she captured another French privateer in the Bay of Biscay after a six-hour pursuit. The prize, Actif, was armed with fourteen 6-pounder and two brass 12-pounder guns. She had a crew of 137 men and this was the first day of her first cruise. From her, Captain Lukin learned that in the previous three months only two British prizes had come into French or Spanish ports, one into Rochelle and one into Passage.
On 18 January 1801, Thames captured the French navy corvette Aurore in the English Channel. Aurore was armed with 16 guns and was under the command of Lieutenant de vaisseau Charles Girault. She had as a passenger the Aide de Camp to the governor of Mauritius, who was carrying dispatches to the French government.
Captain Askew Paffard Hollis took command of Thames in June. On 5 July she became becalmed while trying to recall Superb
HMS Superb (1798)
HMS Superb was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, and the fourth vessel to bear the name. She was launched on 19 March 1798 from Northfleet, and was eventually broken up in 1826. Superb is mostly associated with Richard Goodwin Keats who commanded her as captain from 1801 until...
to join the squadron under Rear Admiral Sir James Saumarez. On 8 July she observed a Franco-Spanish squadron of six sail of the line prepare to sail the next day for Algeciras
Algeciras
Algeciras is a port city in the south of Spain, and is the largest city on the Bay of Gibraltar . Port of Algeciras is one of the largest ports in Europe and in the world in three categories: container,...
, and sailed to Gibraltar to warn the admiral.
Three days later Thames was part of Saumarez's squadron, which left Gibraltar to chase a Franco-Spanish squadron observed sailing from Algeciras. Thames took a minor part in the subsequent Battle of Algeciras Bay
Battle of Algeciras Bay
The Battle of Algeciras Bay refers to two separate battles in July 1801 between an allied French-Spanish fleet and the British near Gibraltar. In the first battle, the French drove off an attack by the larger British fleet and captured one ship of the line...
. The engagement resulted in the destruction of two first rates, and the capture of a third rate.
In subsequent months, assisted by the sloop-of-war
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
, which had also participated in the battle, she destroyed a number of the enemy's coasters in the bay of Estepona
Estepona
Estepona is a town and municipality in the region of the Costa del Sol, southern Spain. It is located in the province of Málaga, part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. Estepona is renowned for its beaches, which stretch along some 21 km of coastline...
.
Sources and references
CitationsBibliography
- Robert Gardiner, The First Frigates, Conway Maritime Press, London 1992. ISBN 0-85177-601-9.
- David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List, Conway Maritime Press, London 1993. ISBN 0-85177-617-5.
- Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of SailBritish Warships in the Age of SailBritish Warships in the Age of Sail is a series of books by maritime historian Rif Winfield comprising a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships in commission or intended to serve in the Royal Navy from 1603 to 1817.-Scope:...
, 1714 to 1792, Seaforth Publishing, London 2007. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6. - Rif Winfield, (2008) British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing, 2nd edition. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.