HMS Arab (1798)

On 5 January 1799 Captain Thomas Bladen Capel took command of Arab, sailing for Jamaica on 23 April.[2] After arriving in the West Indies, at about midnight on 10 July, she engaged three Spanish frigates off the coast of Havana for about half an hour, losing three of the crew to enemy fire though apparently giving as good as she got thus causing the Spanish to withdraw. It was also during late June and early July 1799 that there was a serious outbreak of yellow fever on board, something from which ten of the Ship's company would die, including its carpenter Jeremiah Driscoll. The journal of the ship's surgeon, Thomas Tappen, contains an interesting and detailed account of the symptoms these men experienced, together with his treatment for the fever, including the use of bloodletting and the administering of calomel.[11][12]

On 23 August, Quebec shared with Arab in the capture of the American ship Porcupine, a brig of 113 tons with a crew of eight men that was sailing from New York to Havana carrying a cargo wine, oil, soap and sundries.[13] Porcupine was condemned but Quebec appealed.[14]

During this period Arab on her own also detained, on suspicion, the Spanish brig Esperansa, which was sailing from Carthagena with a cargo of cotton, hides, and so forth.[14] Later, at sea off Cape Canaveral on 11 October, lightning struck Arab, killing three men and splinting her main top mast. Tappen again recorded things in his journal, including the state of one of the men, John Leggett, "whose side had the appearance of being burnt, the skin all peeled off, tho the shirt remained entire ".[11] Before the year was out another severe outbreak of yellow fever struck Arab whilst she was in Jamaica, and by the following January a further twelve of the crew were dead.[11]

An extract from the logbook of HMS Arab. The extract is dated 3 March 1801. The log is available from the National Archives, Kew Cat. Ref ADM 51/1406

Captain John Perkins (Jack Punch) took command in January 1801.[15]

In early 1801 rumours of a diplomatic rift between Britain and Second League of Armed Neutrality started reaching the Caribbean. On 1 March Perkins received orders to stop all Danish, Swedish and Russian ships that he encountered.[16]

Lougen (centre) at the battle of West Kay in combat, with British privateer Experiment and HMS Arab

Two days later Arab, in company with the 18-gun British privateer Experiment, caught and challenged two Danish vessels, the brig Lougen, under the command of Captain Carl Wilhelm Jessen, and the schooner Den Aarvaagne.[5][Note 4] Arab approached the two Danish vessels and, according to Danish accounts, without warning, fired several broadsides at Lougen before the Danish ship was able to return fire. Lougen, which had escaped serious damage, began to return fire steadily. Experiment initially attempted to capture Aarvaagne, but Aarvaagne obeyed orders to stay out of the fight and instead escaped south to Christiansted on St. Croix with its intelligence on British actions. Experiment then joined Arab in the attack on Lougen, with the two British ships sandwiching the Danish ship. During the engagement, which lasted for over an hour, one of Lougen's shots struck the Arab's cathead and loosed the bower anchor. (Perkin's reported that it was the first shot from Lougen that loosed the bower anchor.) Arab's crew was unable to cut the anchor free, leaving Arab unable to manoeuvre effectively. This allowed Jessen to steer a course that brought him under the protection of the shore batteries and then into St Thomas.

The Danish government awarded Jessen a presentation sword made of gold, a medal and 400 rixdollars (the equivalent of a whole year's salary) for his actions in escaping from a numerically superior force.[17] Still, Perkins, after having repaired his battle damage, cruised outside the harbour and in a two-week period captured more than a dozen Danish and other foreign vessels.

Between 15 March and 7 April 1801, an expedition under Lieutenant-General Thomas Trigge and Admiral Duckworth captured the islands of St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and St. Croix. Arab was listed among the vessels participating in the expedition and entitled to a share in the "proceeds of sundry articles of provisions, merchandise, stores, and property afloat" that had been captured.[18] At that time the British seized both Lougen and Den Aarvaagne.

On 13 April Arab captured the Spanish armed schooner Duenda.[19][20][21][22]

On 16 April 1801 Perkins, in Arab and the newly captured Duenda, together with Colonel Richard Blunt and a detachment of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), laid siege to and captured the wealthy islands of Sint Eustatius and Saba, capturing their French garrisons, forty-seven cannon and 338 barrels of gunpowder.[21][22] Eustatia had been the most profitable of the islands in the Dutch West Indies.

Command of Arab passed to Captain Robert Fanshawe in 1802.[2] Fanshawe took her back to Plymouth, where she spent between August and December being repaired and refitted. After a brief period spent laid up she was brought back into service with the resumption of war with France.

Arab was recommissioned in October 1803 under Captain Lord Cochrane,[2] who had been assigned to Arab by Earl St Vincent. In his autobiography, Cochrane compared the Arab to a collier, and his first thoughts on seeing her being repaired at Plymouth were that she would "sail like a haystack".[23] Under Cochrane's command Arab twice collided with Royal Navy ships, first with the 12-gun HMS Bloodhound, and then with the storeship HMS Abundance.

Despite his misgivings, Cochrane still managed to intercept and board an American merchant ship, the Chatham,[6] thereby creating an international incident that led to the consignment of Arab and her commander to fishing fleet protection duties beyond Orkney in the North Sea, an assignment that Cochrane bitterly complained about.[24] Cochrane would later refer to his time in the Arab in the North Sea and the Downs as "naval exile in a dreary tub".[25]

Captain Keith Maxwell replaced Cochrane in 1805, and sailed Arab to serve with the squadron off Boulogne. On 18 July the British spotted the French Boulogne flotilla sailing along the shore. Captain Edward Owen of HMS Immortalite sent Calypso, Fleche, Arab and the brigs Watchful, Sparkler, and Pincher in pursuit of 22 large schooners flying the Dutch flag. As Maxwell came close to shore he found the water barely deep enough to keep Arab from running aground. Still, the British managed to force three of the schooners to ground on the Banc de Laine near Cap Gris Nez; their crews ran two others ashore.[26] The British also drove six French gun-vessels on shore. However, the bank off Cape Grinez, and the shot and shells from the right face of its powerful battery, soon compelled the British to move back from the shore. Arab suffered seven wounded and a great deal of damage. Fleche was the closest inshore owing to her light draft of water; she had five men severely wounded and damage to her rigging.[27]

At some point a shell from a shore battery hit Arab's main-mast-head and then fell to the gun deck. At first a seaman named Clorento tried to defuse the shell. While he was doing this master's mate Edward Mansell and two more seamen came up. Together they got the shell into the sea, where it exploded. The next day Arab buried her dead at sea, after which the men on Immortalite cheered Arab.[28] Maxwell wrote to the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's, drawing its attention to the heroism of the four men. Thereafter, the Fund voted Mansell £50 and the three other seamen £20 each. The fund gave an additional £125 for Maxwell to divide between eight other crewmen in graduated amounts.[29]

On 22 September 1805 she left St Helens, Isle of Wight. She arrived at Funchal Roads on 12 October, having with Favourite, convoyed the slave ship Andersons and some other vessels.[30]

In December Arab and Favourite were off the west coast of Africa. Subsequently, Arab returned to the West Indies. During her time in the West Indies Lieutenant Edward Dix, as acting captain, temporarily replaced Maxwell for a period of five weeks in 1806. Two days after Dix joined Arab, yellow fever broke out which the crew of Arab, except Dix and eight others, contracted; 33 men died.[31] Maxwell resumed command and returned to Spithead in 1807 where Arab's remaining crew were paid off.

The Navy then placed Arab in ordinary at Woolwich. The principal officers and commissioners of His Majesty's Navy sold her at Deptford on 20 September 1810.[4][32]

• Clayton, Jane M. (2014). Ships employed in the South Sea Whale Fishery from Britain: 1775-1815: An alphabetical list of ships. Berforts Group. ISBN 978-1908616524.
• Clowes, W. Laird, et al. (1897–1903) The royal navy: a history from the earliest times to the present. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.; London: S. Low, Marston and Co.), Vol. 3.
• 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.
• Corry, Joseph (1807) Observations Upon the Windward Coast of Africa: The Religion, Character, Customs &c., of the Natives; with a System Upon which They May be Civilized, and a Knowledge Attained of the Interior of this Extraordinary Quarter of the Globe; and Upon the Natural and Commercial Resources of the Country: Made in the Years 1805 and 1806. (G. and W. Nicol).
• Crowhurst, Patrick (1982). "The privateering activities of a Swiss merchant, Benoit Boucard, at Nantes, 1793-1814". Revue française d'histoire d'outremer. Vol. 69 no. 256. pp. 225–235.
• Donnithorne, Christopher H. (undated) Documentation of the British Ships and Battle with the Danes on March 3, 1801, St. Thomas, Danish West Indies. (Unpublished paper accessed 2 September 2015).
• James, William (1837), The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV., R. Bentley
• Marshall, John (1823–35) Royal naval biography; or, Memoirs of the services of all the flag-officers, superannuated rear-admirals, retired-captains, post-captains, and commanders, whose names appeared on the Admiralty list of sea officers at the commencement of the present year or who have since been promoted. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown).
• Stanbury, Myra, Kandy-Jane Henderson, Bernard Derrien, Nicolas Bigourdan, & Evelyne Le Touze (2015) "Chapter 18: Epilogue" [online]. In: Stanbury, Myra. The Mermaid Atoll Shipwreck: A Mysterious Early 19th-century Loss. (Fremantle, WA: Australian National Centre of Excellence for Maritime Archaeology and the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology): 235-290. ISBN 9781876465094 [cited 20 Aug 18].
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Vale, Brian. The Audacious Admiral Cochrane: The True Life of a Naval Legend.
• Earl of Dundonald, Thomas. The Autobiography of a Seaman.
• Thomas, Donald. Cochrane: Britannia's Sea Wolf.