HMS Amazon (1799)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Amazon.

His Majesty's frigate Amazon, arriving off Dover, by Thomas Luny
History
Kingdom of Great Britain
Name	HMS Amazon
Ordered	27 April 1796
Builder	Woolwich Dockyard
Cost	£33,972
Laid down	April 1796
Launched	18 May 1799
Completed	By 5 July 1799
Commissioned	May 1799
Fate	Broken up May 1817
General characteristics
Class and type	Fifth-rate Amazon-class frigate
Tons burthen	1,038 6⁄94 (bm)
Length	150 ft (45.7 m) (overall) 125 ft 7+3⁄4 in (38.3 m) (keel)
Beam	39 ft 5 in (12.0 m)
Depth of hold	13 ft 9 in (4.19 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	284 (later 300)
Armament	UD: 28 × 18-pounder guns QD: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 12 × 32-pounder carronades Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 2 × 32-pounder carronades

HMS Amazon was a 38-gun fifth-rate Amazon-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars under several notable naval commanders and played a key role in the Battle of Copenhagen under Edward Riou, who commanded the frigate squadron during the attack. After Riou was killed during the battle, command briefly devolved to John Quilliam. Quilliam made a significant impression on Horatio Nelson, who appointed Quilliam to serve on the flagship HMS Victory. Amazon passed to William Parker, who continued the association with Nelson with service in the Mediterranean and participation in the chase to the West Indies during the Trafalgar Campaign. Amazon went on to join Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron in the Atlantic and took part in the defeat of Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois's forces at the action of 13 March 1806. During the battle, she hunted down and captured the 40-gun frigate Belle Poule.

Amazon continued in service for several more years, being active in combating raiders and privateers, before being withdrawn from active service in late 1811. She was retained in ordinary for several years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, before being broken up in 1817.

Construction and commissioning

Amazon was a 38-gun, 18-pounder, fifth-rate Amazon-class frigate. The ship was one of two built to the design, along with HMS Hussar. The ships were drawn up by the Surveyor of the Navy Sir William Rule, who submitted the design on 19 April 1796. They were an enlarged version of a previous design by Rule, the 38-gun HMS Naiad. Naiad was in turn an expanded version of another, older, Rule ship class, this being the Amazon class designed in 1794.

Amazon was ordered from Woolwich Dockyard on 27 April 1796 and laid down there that month. She was launched on 18 May 1799 and quickly put into service, having cost £33,972 to build, including fitting her out. She was commissioned in May 1799 under Captain Edward Riou.

British waters and the Baltic

Riou and the Amazon served initially in the English Channel.

On 14 February 1800 HMS Endymion and Amazon recaptured the merchant ship Trelawney, which had been sailing from Liverpool to Leghorn when the French Saint Malo privateer Bougainville captured her. Amazon also captured Bougainville, of eighteen 6-pounder guns and eighty-two men. The next day Bougainville ran into Amazon, lost her masts and foundered, but all but one man of her crew were saved. Amazon, including Bougainville's crew, Endymion, and Trelawney arrived at Portsmouth on 21 February.

Amazon sailed from Portsmouth for Jamaica alongside the 44-gun ship HMS Severn and 16-gun sloop HMS Scorpion on 26 April as escorts for a large convoy. Amazon would only accompany the convoy to "a certain latitude."

On 15 June, Amazon captured the French letter of marque Julie at 32°30′N 16°30′W, as the latter attempted to sail from Bordeaux to Cayenne. In November 1827 head money was paid for twenty-one men. Amazon also recaptured the merchantman Amelia which the French privateer Minerve had captured. Amazon sent Amelia into Plymouth, which she reached in early July.

Riou and Amazon were then assigned to Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's expedition to the Baltic in 1801, to compel the Danes to abandon the League of Armed Neutrality.

1801 engraving of Amazon's first commander Edward Riou

Riou worked closely with Parker's second-in-command, Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, and Captain Thomas Foley in the lead-up to the Battle of Copenhagen, and Nelson appointed Riou commander of the frigates and smaller vessels, instructing him to deploy his ships in support of the main fleet. As the battle began on 2 April, several of Nelson's ships of the line ran aground on shoals in the harbour, forcing the improvisation of a new plan of attack. As Nelson's ships engaged their Danish counterparts, Riou took his frigates in to harass the Trekroner Fort and blockships. Although the frigates were heavily outmatched and dangerously exposed, they maintained the engagement for several hours. The ships suffered heavy casualties, and a splinter hit Riou on the head.

Amazon at Copenhagen, 1801

At 1:15 p.m., Parker was waiting outside the harbour with the reserve and raised a signal ordering Nelson to withdraw. Nelson acknowledged the signal but ignored it, while Nelson's second in command, Rear-Admiral Thomas Graves, repeated the signal but too did not obey it. Riou now found himself in a difficult position. Too junior an officer to risk disobeying a direct order, he remained in action for a further half an hour before reluctantly giving the order for his small squadron to withdraw.

Withdrawing forced Riou's ships to turn their sterns to the Danish guns, thereby exposing their most vulnerable area. When the 32-gun frigate HMS Alcmene and then the 36-gun frigate HMS Blanche withdrew, this reduced the thick cloud of gunsmoke that was helping to obscure the British ships and left Amazon exposed to the full force of the Danish guns. Lieutenant-Colonel William Stuart, commanding the soldiers of the 48th Regiment of Foot, recorded that Riou was killed:

[He] was sitting on a gun, was encouraging his men, and had been wounded in the head by a splinter. He had expressed himself grieved at being thus obliged to retreat, and nobly observed, 'What will Nelson think of us?' His clerk was killed by his side; and by another shot, several marines, while hauling on the main-brace, shared the same fate. Riou then exclaimed, 'Come, then, my boys, let us all die together!' The words were scarcely uttered, when the fatal shot severed him in two.

Command of Amazon devolved to her first lieutenant, John Quilliam, who completed the withdrawal. Nelson went aboard the badly damaged Amazon after the battle and asked Quilliam how he was doing. Quilliam replied 'Middlin', a response that apparently amused Nelson and may have contributed to Nelson's subsequent appointment of Quilliam as first lieutenant aboard HMS Victory. After the battle, command of Amazon passed to Captain Samuel Sutton. On 22 January 1802, the British civilian sloop Lively was driven in to Amazon in the North Sea off Deal, and foundered. Lively's crew was rescued.

Parker and Nelson

Mediterranean

In November Sutton was succeeded by Captain William Parker. Under Parker, Amazon captured the 16-gun privateer Felix on 26 July 1803, and survived a brush with a French fleet off Cape Capet on 2 May 1804. Amazon was subsequently one of the ships that took part in the Trafalgar Campaign, serving with Nelson in the Mediterranean into 1805. On one occasion in December 1804 Nelson ordered Parker to bring a consignment of live bullocks to supply the fleet off Toulon. Amazon was a notably smart ship, and had just been repainted, making it likely that the instruction was not received with much enthusiasm. Parker duly returned with the shipment, prompting Nelson to enquire with gentle humour 'Well, Parker, of course you would not dirty the Amazon for much for anything; have you brought a dozen and a half, or a dozen?' Parker had in fact brought sixty bullocks and thirty sheep, prompting Nelson to promise a reward for his good service.

Parker and Amazon remained with Nelson after the division of the Mediterranean commands left the Spanish coasts under the supervision of Vice-Admiral Sir John Orde. Nelson suspected that Orde was intercepting his despatches and commandeering Nelson's frigates to use himself. Nelson therefore ordered Parker not to stop for any of Orde's ships if this was possible. Parker attempted this but was intercepted by the 24-gun post ship HMS Eurydice. He was able to convince Eurydice's commander, Captain William Hoste, to turn a blind eye. Having delivered his despatches to Lisbon, Parker acted on Nelson's hint that he was not expected back until February and carried out a cruise that netted him several prizes worth a total of £20,000. Orde complained about the 'poaching' taking place on his station, but the prize money went to Parker and Nelson.

West Indies and Atlantic

Amazon went on to join Nelson in the chase to the West Indies and back of Pierre-Charles Villeneuve's fleet during the Trafalgar Campaign. During the voyage across the Atlantic, Nelson wanted to pass on specific instructions to his captains about how he wished to engage the French, but did not want to lose time by ordering his ships to stop. Instead he gave the plans to Parker, who the naval officer Pulteney Malcolm described as the 'best frigate captain in the service', and Parker sped along the line in Amazon, delivering the instructions so efficiently that the fleet lost 'hardly a yard of ground'. Once more in European waters after the fleet's return, Amazon captured the Spanish privateer Principe de la Paz off Ushant on 17 September 1805. Principe was armed with twenty-four 9-pounder guns and four swivels. Her crew of 160 men were principally French. She had been out five weeks and had captured the packet Prince of Wales from Lisbon, and the letter of marque Lady Nelson, which had been sailing from Virginia to Glasgow. A number of Lady Nelson's crew were aboard Principe, as was a considerable amount of specie.

HMS Amazon pursuing an unnamed French vessel, possibly the Belle Poule, sketch by Nicholas Pocock

Amazon was back in the Atlantic in 1806, this time as part of Vice-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren's pursuit of Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez. When Warren's fleet unexpectedly encountered a separate French fleet under Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois, Amazon became involved in the resulting action of 13 March 1806. During the battle she hunted down and captured the 40-gun French frigate Belle Poule in a running engagement. Amazon lost four killed and five wounded during the engagement, while Belle Poule lost six killed and 24 wounded.

On 28 August 1807 Amazon and the 14-gun cutter HMS Cockatrice were in company at the capture of the Danish ship Speculation and so shared in the prize money for her. Amazon captured the French privateer Général Pérignon on 21 January 1810, after a chase of 160 miles. Général Pérignon, of 14 guns and 83 men, had left Saint Malo on 8 January and captured the brig Unanimity, from Oporto. Parker stated that Général Pérignon's superior sailing had enabled her to cruise successfully against British trade since the commencement of the war. Captain John Joyce succeeded Parker as captain in May, however Parker resumed command in February 1811 and captured the French privateer Cupidon on 23 March of the same year. Cupidon, of 14 guns and 82 men, was two days out of Bayonne.

Fate

In December 1811 Amazon was laid up at Plymouth. She was paid off the following year and saw out the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars in ordinary. Amazon was finally broken up at Plymouth in May 1817.

Notes, citations, and references

References

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• Clarke, James Stanier; McArthur, John (2011) [1800]. The Naval Chronicle. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-73155-6.
• Coleman, Ernest (2006). The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration: From Frobisher to Ross. Tempus. ISBN 978-0-7524-3660-9.
• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
• Gardiner, Robert (1994). The Heavy Frigate: Eighteen-Pounder Frigates. Vol. 1. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-627-2.
• Gardiner, Robert (2006). Frigates of the Napoleonic Wars. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-292-4.
• James, William (2002) [1827]. The Naval History of Great Britain, Volume 4, 1805–1807. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-908-9.
• Laughton, J. K. (1896). "Riou, Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 48. Oxford University Press.
• Palmer, Michael A. (2005). Command at sea: naval command and control since the sixteenth century. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01681-1.
• Tracy, Nicholas (2006). Who's who in Nelson's Navy: 200 Naval Heroes. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-244-3.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships of the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-78346-926-0.