HMS Mutine (1797)

HMS "Mutine" was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, captured from the French on 29 May 1797 at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Capture

The "Mutine" was captured during the battle for Santa Cruz by Lieutenant Thomas Hardy, later to become Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's flag captain at the Battle of Trafalgar. He led a cutting out action using boats from HMS "Minerve" and HMS "Lively" and was able to board and capture the vessel, before sailing her out of the port to the British fleet, under heavy fire from shore and naval guns. Hardy was wounded during the action, along with 14 of the other officers and men involved. She was subsequently commissioned into the Royal Navy, and Lt. Thomas Hardy was given command of her in August 1797. [LondonGazette|issue=14026|startpage=644|date=8 July 1797 Official dispatches covering the capture of Mutine, being bought into the Royal Navy, and placed under Hardy's command] This was the first ship Hardy would command. [ [http://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/info_sheets_thomas_hardy.htm Biography of Thomas Masterman Hardy] ]

Mediterranean service

Commanded by Hardy, "Mutine" was present at the Battle of the Nile on the 1 August to 2 August 1798. During the battle, she came to the assistance of HMS "Culloden" which had run aground, and so did not directly participate in the fighting herself. After the British victory, HMS "Leander" was sent to carry the dispatches of the battle, but was captured before she could deliver them. "Mutine" had been sent out on 13 August with a second copy, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Bladen Capel, and so became the first ship to report the victory, when she arrived at Naples on 3 September. Capel handed over the ship to the 18-year-old William Hoste, with orders from Nelson to provision the ship and then to cruise off the coast between Syracuse and Cape Passaro carrying dispatches. Hoste followed these instructions, and delivered the dispatches to Nelson on 14 September.

"Mutine" then re-provisioned at Gibraltar before returning to Naples on 15 October. She spent only a day in port, before sailing for Smyrna with dispatches for the Ambassador at Constantinople. She returned from these duties in early 1799, by which time the French had occupied Naples. "Mutine" was tasked to sail off the coast to keep watch on their activities. She was refitted at Port Mahon in the summer of 1799, and then oversaw the surrender of the French garrison at Civita Vecchia in the Autumn.

She was still in the Mediterranean in 1800, and on 2 September she intercepted and captured the French brig "Due Fratelli" as she sailed between Bastia and Toulon. In February 1801 she met the cutter "Joseph" at Minorca, and the two exchanged dispatches. "Mutine"’s dispatches included the news that Rear-Admiral Warren's squadron had been following, with the intent to engage, Ganteaume's squadron taking troops to Egypt but they had been separated in a gale off Sardinia. The French had been forced to return to Toulon with three ships of the line dismasted. "Mutine" took "Joseph"’s dispatches on to Egypt.

In 1801 she sailed to Trieste, and in 1802, under the command of Lord William FitzRoy, she sailed to Portsmouth, arriving on 4 September and then sailing for Chatham on 9 September to be paid off. She spent 1803 to 1807 tied up at Chatham and was finally sold in 1807.

References

*Colledge
* [http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/info.php?ref=1568 HMS Mutine's career]