fifth-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower.
Rating
The rating system in the Royal N ...
of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
, launched in 1805 at
Chatham
Chatham may refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Chatham Islands (British Columbia)
* Chatham Sound, British Columbia
* Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi
* Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
.
A wartime lack of building materials meant that ''Minerva'' and her class were built to the outdated 50-year-old design of the , and were thus smaller than many contemporary frigates.
Service history
''Thames'' was expected to be commissioned by Captain John Loring but a delay in such meant that ''Thames''s first captain was actually Captain Bridges Taylor, who commissioned ''Thames'' in November 1805.Phillips ''Thames'' (32) (1805) Michael Phillips' Ships of the Old Navy. Retrieved 4 June 2021. On 9 July 1806, ''Thames'', ''Phoebe'' and ''Blanche''were directed towards Shetland to intercept French frigates that were menacing the fishing vessels. ''Thames'' initially served on the
Downs Station
The Downs Station also known as the Commander-in-Chief, the Downs or
Admiral Commanding at the Downs was a formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain and then the United Kingdom's Royal Navy based at Deal. It was a major command of the Royal N ...
before briefly serving on the
Jamaica Station
Jamaica station is a major train station of the Long Island Rail Road located in Jamaica, Queens, New York City. With weekday ridership exceeding 200,000 passengers, it is the largest transit hub on Long Island, the fourth-busiest rail station ...
and in the Mediterranean from 3 March 1807. In April 1808 ''Thames'' returned to Portsmouth where Captain George Waldegrave assumed command and then sailed again for the Mediterranean. On 27 July 1810 ''Thames'' was serving alongside the
sloop
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
s ''Pilot'' and HMS ''Weazel''; together they drove an enemy convoy ashore at
Amantea Amantea ( Calabrian: ; ) is a town, former bishopric, ''comune'' (municipality) and Latin Catholic titular see in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.
It is the twentieth municipality in the region by population, while f ...
and took six
gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
History Pre-steam ...
s, two large
galley
A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used ...
s, and twenty-eight transports with their subsequent landing parties. The destruction of the convoy halted
Joachim Murat
Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...
. From June 1810 ''Thames'' served with the sloop ''Cephalus''; on 16 June a convoy the ships had been following was found beached at
Cetraro
Cetraro (Northern Calabrian, Calabrian: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy.
Waste dumping
The 'Ndrangheta, an Italy, Italian mafia syndicate, has been accused by pentito Francesco Fo ...
and a landing party of 180 men burned the entire convoy. After this command of ''Thames'' transferred to Captain Charles Napier.
On 20 July 1811 ''Thames'' and ''Cephalus'' attacked and captured the fort at Porto del Infrischi and in turn captured eleven gunboats, an armed
felucca
A felucca ( ar, فلوكة, falawaka, possibly originally from Greek , ) is a traditional wooden sailing boat used in the eastern Mediterranean—including around Malta and Tunisia—in Egypt and Sudan (particularly along the Nile and in protect ...
, and fourteen merchant vessels. In September ''Thames'' came under the orders of Captain
Henry Duncan Henry Duncan may refer to:
* Henry Duncan (minister) (1774–1846), Scottish minister, geologist and social reformer; founder of the savings bank movement
* Henry Duncan (naval officer, born 1735) (1735–1814), Naval captain and Deputy Comptroller ...
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
gunboats at
Palinuro
Palinuro is an Italian small town, the most populated civil parish (''frazione'') of Centola, Province of Salerno, in the Campania region. The name of the town is derived from Palinurus, the helmsman of Aeneas, as recorded in the fifth and sixth ...
on 2 November. In the spring of 1812 Napier became the senior naval officer on the coast of
Sapri
Sapri is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. It is one of the southernmost towns of the region of Cilento and its population is 6,783. In February 1813 it was found that the island of
Ponza
Ponza (Italian: ''isola di Ponza'' ) is the largest island of the Italian Pontine Islands archipelago, located south of Cape Circeo in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is also the name of the commune of the island, a part of the province of Latina in the ...
was a hub for enemy privateers and so on 16 February ''Thames'' and the frigate HMS ''Furieuse'' embarked two battalions of soldiers and landed them under fire at Ponza on 26 February. With support from the frigates the soldiers took the heights of the island, inducing its governor to surrender.
In April Captain John Purvis replaced Napier in command, taking ''Thames'' to
Sheerness
Sheerness () is a town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 11,938, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby town ...
where she was refitted as a
troopship
A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...
between August 1813 and January 1814 to serve on the
North America Station
The North America and West Indies Station was a formation or command of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy stationed in North American waters from 1745 to 1956. The North American Station was separate from the Jamaica Station until 1830 when the t ...
under the command of Commander Kenelm Somerville. In August 1814 ''Thames'', now under Commander
Charles Leonard Irby
Charles Leonard Irby (9 October 1789 – 3 December 1845) was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. He undertook a tour of Europe and the Middle East between 1816 and 1818.
Early life
...
, participated in the expedition up the
Patuxent River
The Patuxent River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in the state of Maryland. There are three main river drainages for central Maryland: the Potomac River to the west passing through Washington, D.C., the Patapsco River to the northeast ...
to attack the
Chesapeake Bay Flotilla
The Chesapeake Bay Flotilla was a motley collection of barges and gunboats that the United States assembled under the command of Joshua Barney, an 1812 privateer captain, to stall British attacks in the Chesapeake Bay which came to be known as ...
, which resulted in the
burning of Washington
The Burning of Washington was a British invasion of Washington City (now Washington, D.C.), the capital of the United States, during the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812. It is the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a ...
. Under the rules of prize-money, ''Thames'' shared in the proceeds of the capture of the American vessels in the
Battle of Lake Borgne
The Battle of Lake Borgne was a coastal engagement between the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy in the American South theatre of the War of 1812. It occurred on December 14, 1814 on Lake Borgne. The British victory allowed them to disembark their tro ...
on 14 December 1814. In May 1815 ''Thames'' returned to England under the command of Commander William Walpole and was
broken up
Ship-breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for either a source of parts, which can be sold for re-use, or for the extraction ...