HMS "Leviathan"

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HMS Phoebe (36) and HMS Cherub (18) under Cptn. James Hillyar capture USS Essex (46), Cptn. David Porter, off Valparaiso, Chile. So this leads us on to ask, what exactly was life like onboard these hulks for prisoners awaiting transportation, prisoners of war, and those serving their sentences on the water instead of on land? ‘A College of Villainy’ His murder was the direct means of leading to the abolishing of the hulk system in Australia, and more than one Australian paper stated openly that as he had sown the wind he had reaped the whirlwind.

William Atkins, 26, Ord Seaman, HMS Temeraire, 1804-5. At Trafalgar. Died 22.10,1805, lost aboard Redoubtable, a prize. HMS Penguin (16), G. Morris,drove agroundFrench privateer schooner Renommee, Citizen Renaud, onthe bar at Senegal. She was set on fire and destroyed by the ships boats on the 24th. She serves to recall the shameful days, when as a floating Convict prison, she was not inaptly described by a Colonial writer, as an ‘Ocean Hell.’ Ensign Newbie: Quite a lot of the new generation of young officers, Bird and Stiggins especially. Markready notes with distaste that practically all of them are on short-service commissions of two or three years - as if they are playing at being Royal Navy officers and are not prepared to fully commit themselves.

17 Petty Officers

Thomas Braine, 21, Ord Seaman. (history: 1800-4, Renown, boy; 1804-5, OS; Thunderer, 1805-8, OS; Sirius, 1808-10, OS; Diomede, 1810-11; Queen, 1811, “Captain of Mast.) 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. One observer recalled all the horrors of dungeons and prisons from across the world, ‘but not one of these is to be compared in refinement of cruelty and multiplication of horrors to the floating hells of Victoria.’

The second Captivity was a former 74-gun Third-rate launched in 1786 as HMS Bellerophon. She became a prison hulk in 1815 and was renamed HMS Captivity in 1824. She was sold in 1836. Ganymede was the French frigate Hébé captured in 1809. She was converted to a prison hulk in 1819 and broken up in 1838. The hulks are large vessels without masts, which have been line of battle ships or frigates, fitted up for the reception of the convicts sentenced to be transported. John Cope, 24, AB. Originally a boy, “monkey gun brig” on HMS Diligence. Then 1803, HMS Utrecht, 1804-6, HMS Victory, at Trafalgar, 1806 HMS Gelykheid, 1806-9, HMS Ocean, 1809, HMS Salvador del Mondo. Progress from Ord Seaman to AB. 1809 HMS Jalouse, Quarter Gunner, 1809-12, Captain of the mast, served 1812-16But what were the prison hulks, and what was life like on board these ‘floating hells,’ as they came to be known? After the capture of Minorca, HMS Leviathan and her squadron remained in the area. At about 4pm on 4th February 1799, HMS Leviathan was in company with HMS Argo and was caught in the teeth of a violent westerly gale off Majorca. As they rounded the south point of the Bahia de Acude, they sighted a pair of Spanish frigates at anchor near a fortified tower. On sighting the British ships, the Spaniards cut their anchor cables and fled. The British ships immediately made more sail and gave chase. In the severe weather, HMS Leviathan's main-topsail split and the ship fell behind. The two Spanish ships, by now identified as the Proserpine and the Santa Teresa, both of 34 guns, saw the accident suffered by the bigger British ship and split up. HMS Argo signalled HMS Leviathan that she was going to pursue the Santa Teresa and suggested that the flagship chase the other Spanish ship. Unfortunately, the lookouts failed to see HMS Argo's signal and HMS Leviathan followed her smaller consort and was in sight when the Santa Teresa was taken. But with the advent of transportation, hulks became a method of housing prisoners before they were sent on the grueling voyage across the world to Britain’s new colony of New South Wales.