Name Ann and Amelia Name HMS Mediator Launched 1781 | Fate Sold June 1804 Acquired June 1804 by purchase | |
Owner John Julius Angerstin, or Angerstein Builder Fishburn & Brodrick, Whitby | ||
Ann and Amelia was a three-decker merchant ship launched in 1781. The British East India Company (EIC) twice employed her as an "extra ship", first when she went out to India to sail in trade in that market, and again in 1803 when she sailed back from India to Britain. On her return to Britain the Admiralty purchased her in June 1804 and converted her to a 44-gun fifth rate with the name HMS Mediator. The Navy converted her to a storeship in 1808, but then expended her as a fireship at the battle of the Basque Roads in April 1809.
Contents
Ann and Amelia
After her launch at Whitby in 1781, Ann and Amelia, under the command of Captain John Popham, was at The Downs on 30 January 1782. She left British waters on 6 February 1781 for India. She was to remain there in the local and Far East trade.
In 1803 the EIC employed her again, this time to take a cargo from Bengal to Britain. She left Saugor on 29 January 1803. She reached Coringa on 27 February, and Madras on 11 March. She then reached St Helena on 10 July, and Yarmouth on 29 September, before arriving at The Downs on 3 October.
HMS Mediator
In June–July 1804 Mediatory underwent fitting by Brent, of Rotherhithe. Then she underwent further fitting between July and October, but at Deptford Dockyard. Her measurements, and hence burthen, increased as she changed from Ann and Amelia to Mediator.
Captain Thomas Livingstone commissioned Mediator in August 1804 for the North Sea. Captain John Seater replaced Livingstone in January 1805, and on 25 February sailed towards the East Indies. Equally, on 17 February, Mediator escorted a convoy of Indiamen out of Portsmouth. She escorted them as far as St Helena and then returned to Britain in September.
On 3 March 1806, Mediator and Squirrel left Cork, escorting a convoy for the West Indies. The convoy was reported "all well" on 25 March at 27°30′N 20°30′W.
In May 1806 Mediator was on the Jamaica Station. Seater died about that time, and Captain William Wise replaced him. On 14 November, Wise and Mediator captured the West Indian.
On 14 February 1807 Captain Wise and Mediator fell in with Bacchante, Commander James Dacres, in the Mona Passage. Dacres also had the French schooner Dauphin, which he had just captured. Mediator and Bacchante were patrolling, looking for French warships and privateers, so Dacres took Mediator under his command and hatched a plan to raid the port of Samana, "that nest of privateers". Dacres had Dauphin come into the harbour there under her French flag, with Bacchante disguised as her prize, and Mediator, a former merchantman, appearing to be a neutral ship. This stratagem permitted the British vessels to come into the harbour and anchor within a half a mile of the fort before the enemy realized that vessels were British warships. After a four-hour exchange of fire with a fort there, manned primarily by men from the privateers in the harbour, the fort fell to a land attack by the seamen and marines from Bacchante and Mediator, the landing party being under Wise's command. The British captured two French schooners undergoing fitting as privateers, and an American ship and a British schooner, both prizes to French privateers. Before they left on 21 February, the British destroyed the fort and its guns. In the attack, Dacres had four men wounded. Wise had two men killed and 12 wounded as Mediator had been more heavily engaged than Bacchante in the exchange of fire with the fort. Dacres estimated that French casualties had been high, but did not have a number as the Frenchmen took to the woods as the fort fell.
The Lloyd's Patriotic Fund, subsequently awarded both Dacres and Wise a sword each worth £100 that bore the inscriptions:
In May Mediator and Wise captured the Grouper on 3 May and the Dispatch on 6 May.
In 1807 Captain George Reynolds replaced Wise, who had become ill and wh remained in the West Indies for a little while to recuperate before returning home. By the end of the year Mediator had returned to Britain. In 1808 she was fitted as a storeship and command passed to Captain George Blamey. Her role became one of conveying supplies to the various squadrons blockading French ports. On 15 March 1808 Mediator recaptured the Swedish ship Maria Christiana. In May 1808 Captain John Pasco managed to obtain the command of Mediator for three months.
In January 1809 Mediator was at Corunna. The battle of Corunna, which took place on 16 January 1809, had British troops holding off the French to cover the embarkation of the British Army after its retreat. In this battle Sir John Moore was killed. Mediator and a number of other warships and transports arrived on 14 and 15 January from Vigo.
Mediator took on board a great number of sick and wounded soldiers, and then sailed to Lisbon. After the evacuation was complete a violent fever and ague inflicted Blamey so the Navy appointed Captain James Woolridge acting captain until Blamey recovered.
Fate: A blaze of glory
On 11 April 1809 Woolridge, in Mediator commanded the flotilla of fire and explosion ships that the Admirals Gambier and Lord Cochrane sent in to Basque Roads to attack the fleet that was arrayed there. A flotilla of six fireships, together with one ship laden with combustibles, had gathered at Portsmouth but had been unable to sail. Gambier decided not to wait. He took eight of the largest transports at his command and converted them to fireships. The necessary combustibles came from three French chasse-marées, laden with tar and rosin, that the fleet had recently captured. At Lord Cochrane's suggestion, Mediator too was fitted as a fire-ship.
The fireships attacked at 8:30 p.m., but several had to be abandoned when their fuzes started prematurely. Mediator, with the benefit of the wind and a tide running at four knots broke through the boom protecting the French fleet. Woolridge and his skeleton crew barely escaped before she burst into flames. As it was, a gunner was killed, and Woolridge, Lieutenant Nicholas Brent Clements, Lieutenant James Pearl, and seaman Michael Gibson all received burns when they were blown out of her after she started to burn.
When Blamey, who was in sick quarters, heard that Mediator was going to lead the attack, hurried to join her. However he did not arrive until 12 April.
The battle continued the next day with the French losing four ships-of-the-line and a frigate. Ville de Varsovie (80), and Aquilon (74), were both burnt. Tonnerre (74), Calcutta (54), and Indienne (46), were scuttled.
King George presented Woolridge with a gold medal and chain, worth £100, that had been specially struck for the occasion. Lloyd's Patriotic Fund also presented Woolridge with a sword worth £100. Lastly, he was promoted to the rank of post captain.
In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Basque Roads 1809" to all surviving claimants from the action.