Name Prince of Wales Fate Sold 1806 Acquired 1806 by purchase Builder Greenock | Operator HM Revenue Service Name HMS Thrush Launched 1794 | |
Fate Foundered 1815; salvaged and sold | ||
HMS Thrush was launched in 1794 as the Prince of Wales, which served the Customs Service. In 1806 the British Admiralty purchased her and the Royal Navy renamed her as HMS Thrush as there was already an HMS Prince of Wales in service. Thrush spent her brief active service on the Jamaica Station. She was converted to a powder hulk in late 1809 and foundered at Port Royal in 1815; salvaged, she was sold.
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Royal Navy career
Prince of Wales arrived at Portsmouth on 2 June 1806, and the Navy renamed her on 12 September. She then lay there until was fitted out between March 1808 and 25 June.
Commander Charles Webb commissioned Thrush in April 1808. He then sailed her to Jamaica on 18 July. Thrush detained the Maria, which was sailing from Cuacoa to St Croix. Maria arrived at Jamaica on 21 January 1809. Thrush also detained the Nancy, Fresback, master, which had been sailing from Guernsey to Jacmel. Nancy arrived at Jamaica between 22 and 29 April.
In May 1809 Commander Henry Spark Jones replaced Webb. In the summer of 1809, Thrush participated in the blockade of San Domingo until the city fell on July 11 to Spanish forces and the British under Hugh Lyle Carmichael. The blockading squadron, under Captain William Pryce Cumby in the 64-gun third rate Polyphemus, also included Aurora, Tweed, Sparrow, Lark, Griffon, Moselle, and Fleur de la Mer.
Fate
In October 1809 the Navy converted Thrush to a powder hulk at Port Royal. Thrush foundered in July 1815 while she lay at anchor at Port Royal. The Navy salvaged her and sold her.
Thrush in literature
In the novel Mansfield Park, by the famed English author Jane Austen, the protagonist, Fanny Price, visits Portsmouth as her brother William is about to sail in Thrush. William has been promoted to lieutenant and appointed to Thrush, which has just gone out of Portsmouth Harbour and is as lying at Spithead. Austen may very well have seen Thrush fitting out there in early 1808, and drawn on her memory for a suitable appointment for a new lieutenant when she wrote the book between 1811 and 1813.