HMS Salsette (1805)

HMS ''Salsette'' (or ''Salcette'') was a ''Perseverance''-class fifth-rate frigate of a nominal 36 guns, launched in 1805. The East India Company built her for the Royal Navy at the company's dockyards in Bombay. She was the Navy's first teak-built ship.

She served in the Indies, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Home Station, taking several prizes and seeing a limited amount of action. She did participate in a single-ship action in the Baltic that was notable for the other, much smaller, vessel's heroism. ''Salsette'' was laid up after the end of the Napoleonic Wars but then went on to serve in a number of support functions until the Admiralty had her broken up in 1874.

Naming

Built and launched as HMS ''Pitt'', she was renamed to ''Salsette'' on 19 February 1807. She is not to be confused with her sister ship , which was named ''Salsette'' prior to her acquisition by the Royal Navy, which renamed her ''Pitt''. This ''Pitt'' became ''Doris'' on 26 October 1807. For a while the Navy had two frigates with the same name.

''Salsette'' received her name from Salsette Island in Maharashtra state on India's west coast. The metropolis of Bombay and the city of Thane lie on this island.

Construction

''Salsette'' was the first vessel the Bombay Dockyard built for the Royal Navy. As such, there were apparently many defects in her construction, which led the Navy to demand that the dockyard stick more closely to the design plans in the future.

Initial service

In 1805 the Royal Navy commissioned ''Salsette'' (as ''Pitt'') at Bombay under Captain Walter Bathurst for the East Indies and she participated in the blockade of Mauritius in 1805–6.

On 20 or 26 January ''Salsette'' chased a French prize and suffered one man killed and extensive damage to her hull by cannon fire from a fort on Pointe aux Cannoniere.

In 1806 she came under the command of Captain James Giles Vashon. In February 1807 Captain George Waldegrave assumed command. ''Salsette'' left Madras on 29 September 1807 and arrived in Portsmouth in early 1808, having brought with her Lord William Bentinck, the late governor of Madras. At Portsmouth she underwent repairs from January 1808 to 17 March and then sailed to the Baltic.

Baltic

''Salsette'' was in the Baltic during the Gunboat War and the Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812). During this time she was again under the command of Captain Walter Bathurst.

On 30 April 1808, ''Salsette'' captured a Danish privateer after a chase of five hours off Moen island. The privateer was the ''Krathesminde'' (or ''Kratbesminde''), She had left Copenhagen five days previously but had made no captures. She was armed with eight guns and she had a crew of 31 men, under the command of her master Christian Oxholm. On 21 May ''Salsette'' captured a sloop of unknown name. That same month ''Salsette'' also shared with in the capture of a schuyt.

On 2 June ''Salsette'' and , together with the boats of and , captured four Russian vessels that were carrying corn. They also captured the boat ''Humbug''. Three days later ''Salsette'' and ''Centaur'' captured ''Johanna''.

On 23 June Bathurst and ''Salsette'' chased a Russian sloop-of-war to Reval. He did not capture her, but he did capture a galliot anchored outside the port. As Bathurst was securing the prize, lookouts spotted a Russian cutter off Norgen island, which defends Reval from the sea.

''Salsette'' set out in pursuit and eventually captured the cutter after having lost one man killed in a four-hour running fight. The cutter turned out to be the ''Opyt'' (aka ''Apith''), armed with fourteen 12-pounder carronades and carrying a crew of 63 men. In the pursuit and engagement the cutter had lost four men killed and eight wounded, including her commander, before she struck.''Naval Chronicle'', vol. 20, p. 151. When her commander, Lieutenant Gavril C. Nevelskoy (also Novelski), tendered his sword, Bathurst returned it to him in recognition of his and his crew's heroic resistance. Bathurst then landed all the survivors near Libawa. The British took ''Opyt'' into service as ''Baltic''.

On 20 August ''Salsette'' joined the British fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, which was blockading Rager Vik (Ragerswik or Rogerswick or Russian: Baltiyskiy) where the Russian fleet was sheltering after the British 74-gun third rates ''Implacable'' and ''Centaur'' had destroyed the Russian 74-gun . ''Baltic''s initial task was to land the prisoners that ''Implacable'' had taken from ''Vsevolod''.

Saumarez wanted to attack the fleet and ordered ''Baltic'' and to be prepared as fireships. However, reconnaissance by ''Salsette'', among other vessels, revealed that the Russians had stretched a chain across the entrance to the harbor, precluding an attack by fireships. Saumarez then abandoned the plan.

During the winter of 1808–09, ''Salsette'' was escorting a convoy of some 12 merchantmen, together with ''Magnet'', , and two Swedish naval vessels, when ice in the Baltic trapped the convoy. Most of the vessels, save ''Salsette'', were lost, and ''Salsette'' herself could not return to port for some two months. ''Salsette''s first Lieutenant at the time, Lieutenant Henderson, many years later wrote to Jamsetjee Bomanjee reporting that she had survived due to the quality of her teak hull. In June 1819 he was in Bombay as captain of the merchant ship and presented Bomanjee with a small clock as a token of appreciation.

Continuing active service

On 29 July 1809 ''Salsette'' escorted the vessels carrying the troops of Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope across the Channel where they were to participate in the Walcheren Expedition. She herself carried the left wing of the 28th Regiment of Foot. In the Stone Deeps Rear Admiral Sir Richard Keats boarded ''Salsette''. Then Sir Home Popham in led the division to the Roompot.

In 1810 ''Salsette'' sailed to Malta. On the way she captured a French brig off the island of Marettimo. She then proceeded to Smyrna, where Lord Byron cadged a ride to Constantinople. While she was at the Dardanelles, on 3 May a Lieutenant William Ekenhead of her Marines and Lord Byron swam the Hellespont from Sestos to Abydos, that is, from the European to the Asian side. Although the Hellespont at that point was only about a mile wide, strong currents forced the two swimmers to cover about four miles, which took them both a little more than an hour.

''Salsette'' sailed from Constantinople to Toulon to join the blockade there, and then in November to Malta where Bathurst removed to the 74-gun and Captain Henry Montressor took command of ''Salsette''. His successors included William Bertie (who drowned in December 1810), Commander John Hollingsworth, and in 1811, Captain Henry Hope.

On 29 June 1811 she captured the slaver ''Expedition'' off Mauritius. The prize crew took the ship and the slaves on her to the Portuguese colony of Goa because selling slaves was illegal in British India, but not in Goa. ''Salsette'' shared the prize money with the crews of and .

On 21 April 1812, ''Salsette'' captured the French privateer ''Comète'' in the Mediterranean. She carried two 18-pounder guns and had a crew of 45 men. The head money (a per head bounty for each of the 45 men captured) was not paid until 1831.

In September ''Salsette'' was at Smyrna where she took on board the explorer and antiquarian William Ouseley. They sailed back to Britain via the Greek isles, Toulon, and Alicante.

Then on 14 October 1812 ''Salsette'' captured the three-masted lugger ''Mercure'' off the Isle of Wight. This vessel carried 16 guns and had a crew of 70, and ''Salsette'' took her into Portsmouth.

In December 1812 Captain John Bowen assumed command and on 25 April 1813 ''Salsette'' proceeded to Madras, convoying East Indiamen sailing there. In May 1814 she unsuccessfully pursued the American privateer , which captured a few days later. On 27 November 1814 ''Salsette'' saved the ''Cornwallis'', of Calcutta. A severe gale had dis-masted ''Cornwallis'' and ''Salsette'' had brought her into Trincomalee. The Vice Admiralty Court awarded ''Salsette'' 7.5% of the value of the vessel and her cargo, which were estimated at upwards of £90,000 sterling.''The Asiatic journal and monthly miscellany'', (Feb 1816), Volume 1, p. 192.

In 1816 ''Salsette'' escorted a convoy back to Britain. On 12 May, ''Salsette'' stopped at St Helena ''en route'', which gave Bowen the opportunity to be presented to the Emperor Napoleon. She arrived in Plymouth in June 1816 to pay off.

Post-war career and fate

''Salsette'' was laid up at Portsmouth. The Admiralty had her housed over in November 1823 but she remained there in ordinary. In July 1831 she was fitted as a lazaretto for Hull. In October 1835 she was fitted as a receiving ship at Woolwich. On 7 September 1869 the Admiralty ordered her moved to Sheerness. ''Salsette'' was broken up on 20 March 1874 at Chatham.

Notes

Citations

References

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salsette (1805)
Frigates of the Royal Navy
1805 ships