HMS Thames (1805)

Thames was expected to be commissioned by Captain John Loring but a delay in such meant that Thames's first captain was actually Captain Bridges Taylor, who commissioned Thames in November 1805.[3][2] On 9 July 1806, Thames, Phoebe and Blanchewere directed towards Shetland to intercept French frigates that were menacing the fishing vessels.[4] Thames initially served on the Downs Station before briefly serving on the Jamaica Station and in the Mediterranean from 3 March 1807.[2] In April 1808 Thames returned to Portsmouth where Captain George Waldegrave assumed command and then sailed again for the Mediterranean.[3] On 27 July 1810 Thames was serving alongside the sloops Pilot and HMS Weazel; together they drove an enemy convoy ashore at Amantea and took six gunboats, two large galleys, and twenty-eight transports with their subsequent landing parties.[2][3] The destruction of the convoy halted Joachim Murat's planned invasion of Sicily.[3] From June 1810 Thames served with the sloop Cephalus; on 16 June a convoy the ships had been following was found beached at Cetraro and a landing party of 180 men burned the entire convoy.[3] After this command of Thames transferred to Captain Charles Napier.[2]

On 20 July 1811 Thames and Cephalus attacked and captured the fort at Porto del Infrischi and in turn captured eleven gunboats, an armed felucca, and fourteen merchant vessels.[3] In September Thames came under the orders of Captain Henry Duncan in HMS Imperieuse and together they captured ten Neapolitan gunboats at Palinuro on 2 November.[2] In the spring of 1812 Napier became the senior naval officer on the coast of Calabria and as such Thames and Pilot captured Sapri on 14 May after a two-hour bombardment, capturing twenty-nine merchant vessels.[3] In February 1813 it was found that the island of Ponza was a hub for enemy privateers and so on 16 February Thames and the frigate HMS Furieuse embarked two battalions of soldiers and landed them under fire at Ponza on 26 February.[3][2] With support from the frigates the soldiers took the heights of the island, inducing its governor to surrender.[3]

In April Captain John Purvis replaced Napier in command, taking Thames to Sheerness where she was refitted as a troopship between August 1813 and January 1814 to serve on the North America Station under the command of Commander Kenelm Somerville.[2][3] In August 1814 Thames, now under Commander Charles Leonard Irby, participated in the expedition up the Patuxent River to attack the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, which resulted in the burning of Washington.[2][3] Under the rules of prize-money, Thames shared in the proceeds of the capture of the American vessels in the Battle of Lake Borgne on 14 December 1814.[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] In May 1815 Thames returned to England under the command of Commander William Walpole and was broken up at Plymouth in October 1816.[2]

• James, William (1902d) [1837]. The naval history of Great Britain (1805–1809). Vol. 4 (New six volume ed.). London: Macmillan.
• James, William (1902) [1837]. The naval history of Great Britain (1809–1813). Vol. 5 (New six volume ed.). London: Macmillan.
• James, William (1902) [1837]. The naval history of Great Britain (1813–1827). Vol. 6 (New six volume ed.). London: Macmillan.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.

• Compilation of newspaper entries for HMS Thames by the late Paul Benyon