HMS Phaeton (1782)
 A Japanese drawing of the HMS Phaeton |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Arethusa-class frigate 1778 |
| Shipyard |
Smallshaw & Co., Liverpool |
| Order | March 3, 1780 |
| Keel laying | June 1780 |
| Launch | June 12, 1782 |
| 1. Period of service |
|
| Commissioning | March 1782 |
| Decommissioning | March 26, 1827 |
| Whereabouts | Wrecked |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
928 72/94 tons builder's measurment |
| length |
141 feet (= 42.98 m) on the gun deck |
| width | |
| Draft | |
| crew |
270 |
| drive |
sail |
| Armament |
Upper deck: 28 × 18 pounder cannons |
The HMS Phaeton was an Arethusa-class frigate of the Royal Navy , which represented a ship of the 5th rank with 38 guns and became famous for its penetration into the port of Nagasaki in 1808. John Smallshaw built the Phaeton in Liverpool between 1780 and 1782. She was to much to do during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars involved, where they have many pinches muster. Francis Beaufort , inventor of the Beaufort scale , was a lieutenant on the Phaeton who distinguished himself during a successful commando operation. The Phaeton sailed into the Pacific in 1805 and returned in 1812. It was decommissioned on March 26, 1827 and sold for demolition in 1828.
Service in the canal
In 1793 the Phaeton , under the command of Sir Andrew Snape Douglas , was part of the squadron of Admiral John Gell when she captured a French privateer with the Spanish prize St. Jago 140 miles west of Cape Finisterre . The upper deck of the St. Jago was smashed and the ship had suffered losses of 10 crew members killed and 37 wounded during the defense against the French. The French were able to hold the ship for 11 days until the Phaeton recaptured them. The cargo of the Spanish ship was worth between 1.2 and 1.3 million British pounds, as it consisted of gold bars that were declared as pewter on the cargo list , but were only thinly coated with pewter.
The ships that went to Portsmouth in formation were the HMS St. George , HMS Egmont , HMS Edgar , HMS Ganges and the Phaeton . The gold came in 21 wagons and accompanied by a group of light dragoons across London Bridge and was kept in the Tower of London .
On December 11th, the High Court of Admiralty decided that the St. Jago should be returned to Spain. One eighth of the treasure was kept for salvage costs and most of it was handed over to the British ships that were being held by the Spaniards at A Coruña . The conquerors' representatives appealed against the decision and on February 4, 1795, the prize court set the value of the cargo at £ 935,000 . At this point the entire crew, captains, officers and admirals could expect a participation. Admiral Hood's stake was £ 50,000.
In March 1793, the Phaeton captured the privateer Aimable Liberté , a lugger with four guns. On April 14th she took the Général Mourier , equipped with 44 guns. On May 28th she captured the Prompte (20 guns) off the Spanish coast. Together with HMS Weasle , she captured two privateers in the Canal in June - the Poisson Volante (10 guns) and the General Washington . On November 27, she and the HMS Latona captured the blonde (38 guns) from Ouessant . She was dismissed in February 1794, but reinstated Captain William Bentinck a month later .
During the naval battle on the 13th Prairial in 1794, the Phaeton came to the aid of the de-masted HMS Defense . In doing so, she exchanged broad sides with the French liner Impetueux .
Captain Robert Stopford
In September the Phaeton came under the command of Captain Robert Stopford . In May 1795 she escorted Princess Caroline of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel to England. Then began what turned into a spectacular foray. During Stopford's service in the English Channel , the Phaeton captured 13 privateers and three warships, it also brought back numerous ships that the French had taken away.
On March 10, 1796 reached Phaeton the Bonne Citoyenne , a French corvette of 20 guns, and captured it at Cape Finisterre . Stopford took them back to Britain as booty. The Royal Navy bought it and used it as HMS Bonne Citoyenne , a 6th rank war sloop.
While the Phaeton was cruising in the canal, she captured the privateer Actif (18 guns) on March 6, 1797 and the Chasseur (6 guns) on September 16 . Together with the HMS Unite , they took the India with 16 guns on September 24th in front of the Roches Bonnes. Together with the Unite and the 32-gun frigate HMS Stag , they captured the Découverte on October 7 and the Hazard (12 guns) in the Bay of Biscay on December 28 . The next day the conquered Phaeton along with the HMS Anson with 44 guns under Captain Philip Charles Durham , the HMS Daphne , a ship 6. Ranges of the Sphinx class with 20 guns back, which had previously conquered almost exactly three years the French. Of a crew of 276 people, including 30 passengers, the Daphne lost five men and had several wounded before surrendering. The Anson had no losses.
On New Year's Day 1798, the Phaeton conquered the Aventuree . On February 19, she took the Légère with 18 guns in the canal. On March 22nd, she was involved in how the frigate Charente with 36 guns was damaged near the Cordouan lighthouse . The Phaeton fired on the Charente and initially chased them within range of the HMS Canada , a 3rd rank ship with 74 guns under the command of Captain Sir John Borlase Warren , with whom she exchanged broadsides. The Charente ran aground, but so did the Canada . The Phaeton and the Anson had to give up the hunt to get the Canada free again. In the meantime, the Charente threw her guns overboard, came loose and reached the Gironde , much too damaged for further use.
With the Anson , she captured the privateer Mercure with 18 guns on August 31 and, after a 24-hour pursuit, on September 6th, the privateer Flore with 32 guns. On October 8, she then took the privateer Lévrier with 16 guns. Together with the HMS Ambuscade and the Stag , they took the Hirondelle on November 20th . The French would capture the Ambuscade in a naval battle on December 14, 1798, the British recaptured it in 1802.
On November 28, 1798, the Phaeton took the French privateer Resolue , a brig with 18 guns. The brig had previously captured the British merchant ship General Wolfe , en route from Poole to Newfoundland , and an American sloop from Boston to Hamburg . The Stag later recaptured the American ship. On December 6, the Phaeton and the Stag captured the French privateer Resource , a six-gun brig that was cruising off the African coast. Six days later, the two ships recaptured the Danish brig Dorothea , which the privateer Rusee had captured on its route from Amsterdam to Tangier .
In the Mediterranean Sea
In July 1799, the Phaeton sailed under Captain Sir James Nicoll Morris together with Lord Elgin , after whom the Elgin Marbles were named, to Constantinople . Elgin would be the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire until 1803 . In May 1800 she took part in the blockade of Genoa in Lord Keith's squadron . The Austrian general Baron d'Ott, who besieged the city, particularly appreciated their fire in support of the Austrian army.
On October 25, 1800, the Phaeton chased the Spanish Polacker San Josef to an anchorage below the battery in Fuengirola with five heavy guns, where she joined a French privateer, a brig. The following night the brig fled, while the Polacker tried twice without success to escape to Malaga . On the night of October 27, Francis Beaufort commanded the Phaeton's boats in the event of a failure. Beaufort and Stopford had known each other from a joint service on HMS Aquilon a few years earlier. The big boat with a carronade lost touch and was still out of range when a French privateer, a schooner that had come to anchor unseen, opened fire on the other boats. The launch and two cutters attacked the Polacker. The storming group suffered one death and three wounded. Beaufort, wounded nineteen times himself, received a pension of £ 45 12s for these wounds in November 1801. 6d. awarded per year. The attack was successful when the Polacker was taken at 5 o'clock. It was used as a supply ship that transported food between Malaga and Velilla . Its crew consisted of 34 seamen and 22 soldiers, the armament of 14 guns. The Spaniards suffered at least 13 wounded. The British immediately took the San Josef into their service as a sloop with the name HMSloop Calpe , the old name of Gibraltar. Although it would have been customary to promote Beaufort as the successful and heroic leader of the expedition, Lord Keith chose instead George Dundas , who was absent from the battle and also reported to Beaufort. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the survivors of the attack with the Naval General Service Medal with a clasp with the inscription "27 OCT. BOAT SERVICE 1800".
On May 16, boats of the Phaeton and the HMS Naiad reached the port of Marín, Pontevedra in Galicia in northwestern Spain under the leadership of the First Lieutenant of the Naiad . There they captured the Spanish corvette Alcudia and destroyed the armed transport ship Raposo , both of which were under the protection of a battery with five 24-pounders. The Alcudia , commanded by Don Jean Antonio Barbuto, had been moored near the fort. Their sails had previously been removed, so the boats had to pull them away. But soon a strong southwest wind set in and made it necessary to set them on fire. Only four people from the two British ships were wounded. The Phaeton returned to Britain and was withdrawn in March 1802.
East Indies
In July 1803, Captain George Cockburn put the Phaeton back into service for the Far East. On August 2, 1805, under Captain John Wood, she fought together with the HMS Harrier , a brig sloop of the Cruizer class, under Captain Edward Ratsey against the French frigate Sémillante (40 guns) under Captain Leonard-Bernard Motard in the San Bernardino Street in front of San Jacinto in the Philippines. After exchanging fire with the Harrier and then with the Phaeton , the Sémillante sought refuge under the guns of a coastal battery. Unable to attack them there, the two British ships eventually sailed away with the casualties of two wounded each. The Sémillante was reported to have suffered losses of 13 dead and 36 wounded. After taking up new supplies in San Jacinto, the Sémillante was commissioned in March 1805 to sail to Mexico to fetch hard money for the Philippines, the encounter with the Phaeton and the Harrier thwarted the plan. Motard returned to the Indian Ocean and operated against the British from Mauritius . In October 1806, Wood took command of the Phaeton . In July 1808, Captain Fleetwood Pellew succeeded him.
Incident in the port of Nagasaki
After the French conquered the Batavian Republic and Napoleon began using their resources against Great Britain, the ships of the Royal Navy started the hunt for Dutch ships. The Phaeton , now under the command of Captain Fleetwood Pellew , entered the port of Nagasaki in 1808 to ambush a few Dutch merchant ships that were about to arrive (see also History of Japanese Seafaring ).
The Phaeton arrived on October 4th under the Dutch flag. As was customary, representatives from the Dejima Trading Post rowed towards the ship to greet it, but as they got closer, the Phaeton lowered a dinghy and captured the Dutch. They were required to be provided with water, food, and oil in order to be released. The Phaeton underlined its demands by firing guns and muskets and threatened to destroy the Japanese ships in the harbor.
The fiefs of Fukuoka and Saga were responsible for the security of the port and the surrounding sea areas, who each took on this task for a year and maintained small branches in the bay. In that year this duty was incumbent on the Fief Saga, but for financial reasons only 100 men were stationed instead of the officially planned 1000 men. Matsudaira Yasuhide , the magistrate of Nagasaki ( Nagasaki bugyō ), immediately requested troops from the surrounding fiefs. A force of 8,000 samurai and 40 ships should arrive within a few days. Meanwhile, Nagasaki's magistrate decided to provide the required provisions.
Even before this force reached Nagasaki, the Phaeton left again on October 7th after it was learned that the Dutch merchant ships would not come this year. She also left a letter to the Dutch director Hendrik Doeff . Nagasaki magistrate, Matsudaira, took responsibility and committed hara-kiri ( seppuku ).
After the Phaeton disregarded the Japanese ban on landings , the shogunate ( Bakufu ) strengthened the coastal defense. An edict issued in 1825 to expel foreign ships (1825–1842) was linked to the death penalty. Until then, the Dutch language served as the only means of communication with the West. But it was now ordered that official interpreters should also learn English and Russian. In 1814 the first English-Japanese dictionary with 6000 words, written by the interpreter for Dutch Motoki Shōzaemon, appeared .
To Nagasaki
Pellew was confirmed in his rank as post-captain on October 14, 1808 and participated in the invasion of Mauritius in 1810 and in the British-Dutch War for Java in 1811 .
In May, the Phaeton escorted the Second Division of British Forces, commanded by Major General Wetherall, from Madras to Penang , then to Malacca . When the expedition reached Batavia , the Phaeton was patrolling with three other frigates, looking for any French frigates that were known to be in the area.
On August 31, a landing party of the Phaeton and the HMS Sir Francis Drake , together with marine infantry from the HMS Hussar , captured a French fort near Sumenep on the island of Madura near Java. The British lost three dead and 28 injured.
Pellew sailed back to Europe in August 1812, he escorted a convoy of East Indiamans . For his services he received a gift of 500 guineas and thanks from the British East India Company .
post war period
In 1816, Captain Frances Stanfell set out on the Phaeton from Sheerness to travel to St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope .
In April 1818, Captain W. H. Dillon put the Phaeton into service. In the fall of 1818, Lieutenant John Geary, who had been hired on the Phaeton when she was reinstated, was on trial on the following charges: "Seducing musicians from one of the garrison regiments and deceiving the officers who had been sent on board to look for them." , that is, because of homosexual acts. He was found guilty and sentenced to leave the ship. Captain Robert Cavendish Spencer , later in command of the Ganymede , one of the captains of the court-martial, believed that Gaery was only used as a scapegoat. Spencer stood up for Gaery and offered him work for the future. The Phaeton sailed to Southeast Asia (East Indies).
Scrapping
She was withdrawn in October 1819 and returned to service within a month under Captain William A. Montague for a voyage to Halifax . In September 1822 she was dismissed again. She was immediately taken back into service under Captain Henry Sturt and withdrawn three years later. On July 11, 1827, it was sold to a Mr. Freake for £ 3,430, but the sale failed because Freake "had been declared insane". On March 26th it was sold to Joshua Cristall for scrapping for £ 2,500.
literature
- William George Aston : HMS Phaeton at Nagasaki . In: Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan . Volume 7. 1879. pp. 323-336. (English)
- Robert Gardiner: The Heavy Frigate . Conway Maritime Press, London 1994. (English)
- William James: Naval History of Great Britain 1793-1827 . London 1837. (English)
- David Lyon: Sailing Navy List , Conway Matitime Press, London 1997, ISBN 0-85177-864-X (English)
- Rif Winfield: British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1714-1792 . Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2007. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6 . (English)
Web links
- Basic information about The Perry Expedition (English)
- Marek M. Koscielecki: The Role of English in Japan (English)
- Korea in the Eye of the Tiger , Chapter 16 - The End of Asian insulation (English)
- HMS Phaeton at Ships of the Old Navy (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Annual Register, 1795 , accessed April 15, 2010
- ↑ James (1837), Vol. 1, 158.
- ↑ United Service Magazine 1847. p. 639.
- ↑ James (1837) Vol 2, 94.
- ↑ James (1837) Vol 2, 203.
- ↑ James (1837) Vol 2, 239.
- ↑ James (1837) Vol 3, 9.
- ↑ James (1837) Vol. 3, 55.
- ↑ James, Vol. 4, p. 153
- ^ A b Laughton: Dictionary of National Biography . 1895, Pellew, Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds (1789–1861), pp. 271 .
- ↑ James (1837) Vol 6, 26.