Lisbon Station 1795–1797 Caroline was
commissioned by Captain William Luke in July 1795 to serve in the
French Revolutionary Wars, beginning her career in the
North Sea Fleet of Admiral
Adam Duncan. The frigate served in close contact with Duncan, being able to react quickly to his orders and split off from the fleet where necessary. On 1 December the frigate took the 14-gun
brig Le Pandore off the
Texel after a chase of one hour, however
Le Pandores companion, the 12-gun brig
Le Septnie, escaped while the crew of
Le Pandore were being removed. After this
Caroline transferred to the
Lisbon Station, tasked with patrolling from
Cape Finisterre to the southern border of Spain and Portugal, where she took an 18-gun
corvette in April 1796, and the 10-gun
privateer polacre La Zenodene off
Cape Palos on 23 May. Soon after this on 11 August the frigate sailed briefly for the
Mediterranean Sea. There the frigate captured the French privateer
Rochellaire on 20 August alongside the
ships-of-the-line and , the frigate , and the
sloop . Sailing with the ship-of-the-line and the frigates
Alcmene and , she then captured the Spanish merchant
Adriana on 5 November. Activity continued into 1797, with the Spanish brig
San Joseph being captured by
Caroline and the frigate on 16 February and another Spanish brig,
San Luis, taken by
Caroline on 5 July. In September she sailed to the
Cape of Good Hope with Colonel
Arthur Wellesley on board as he went to join his regiment in India.
1798–1799 The frigate continued throughout this period to serve on the Lisbon Station while also spending considerable time around
Cádiz and the edges of the Mediterranean while assigned to Admiral
Lord St Vincent's fleet. As part of such, in 1798, she shared in the proceeds of the capture of the merchants
Umbarca Souda, on 18 February,
Constanza, on 26 April, and
Strella de Mare, on 9 May, and the Spanish privateer
El Carmen on 27 February. Between 19 March and 26 April
Caroline also captured the French privateers
Le Francois,
Le Fortune, and
Le Vainqueur. The ship recaptured the
East India Company ship on 29 June, after she had been taken by the French privateer
Mercure on 17 June.
Caroline continued to share in the fleet's merchant captures, with
Il Terrice on 21 July and ''Virgin d'Idra
on 18 September. With continuing success, Caroline
and Flora
retook Six Sisters
, which had been captured by a French privateer, in early February and captured the French privateers L'Aventure
on 14 February and La Legere'' on 19 April.
1800–1801 On 15 January 1800
Caroline took the 22-gun privateer
Vulture at .
Caroline sighted
Vulture west of Lisbon chasing the merchant brig
Flora;
Vulture attempted to escape and threw two of her guns overboard to increase her speed, but in the evening
Caroline captured her without a shot being fired. The frigate then took the Danish merchant
Young Johannes, laden with wine, on 8 April. In late 1800
Caroline began to serve in Rear-Admiral
Sir James Saumarez's Cádiz
blockade squadron.
Caroline often patrolled with the brig
HMS Salamine, together taking on
Christmas Day the French brig
Good Friends, which was laden with cannon and mortars, and the French 4-gun
xebec privateer
Le Regulus laden with
arms on 21 January 1801. Continuing a busy start to the year,
Caroline and the brig detained the Swedish brig
Active on 1 February as she travelled to
Leghorn. The frigate continued off Cádiz throughout 1801, forming part of the bolstered squadron there in August, retaking the merchantman
Prince of Wales on 5 October, and going into
Portsmouth from there on 1 December.
Initial East Indies service 1802–1803 , captain of
Caroline 1802–05 At the start of 1802
Caroline shared in the capture of the merchant
Tito with much of the squadron. On 10 February the frigate returned from Cádiz to be
paid off at Portsmouth. She was
refitted at
Woolwich between March 1802 and February 1803, being recommissioned on 9 November 1802, shortly before the
Peace of Amiens ended, beginning to serve in the
Napoleonic Wars under Captain
Benjamin William Page.
Caroline served on the
Irish Station until May 1803. The ship then received immediate orders to sail for the
East Indies carrying the declaration of war upon France and instructions to detain all Dutch vessels. Page had so little time to react that the ship was never configured for service anywhere else but Ireland. On 28 May
Caroline was in sight of the ship-of-the-line as she captured the French frigate
''L'Ambuscade, previously the British HMS Ambuscade
, and thus shared in the prize of her. A day later she captured the French merchant brig La Bonne Mere
. The passage to the East Indies took 103 days, with Caroline
only stopping briefly at Madeira for water and wine. Here Caroline'' sent dignitaries to the governor of the island, only for the representatives to mistake the governor's butler for him. The frigate completed the voyage of 13,000 miles without losing any men to sickness, for which the discipline and cleanliness of the ship were praised. The ship arrived in the East Indies on 6 September and took the French merchant
Petite Africaine a day later.
1804 For the next few months into early 1804
Caroline escorted convoys through the
Bay of Bengal, and then on 5 January captured the 8-gun privateer
Les Frères Unis around south-west of
Little Andaman. During the pursuit one crewmember of
Les Frères Unis was killed by a musket shot from the frigate; fifty-five members of her crew were actually soldiers who had travelled to
Mauritius from
Bourdeaux in July 1803. On 4 February
Caroline discovered the 26-gun privateer
Le Général du Caen in the channel south of
Preparis island; both ships used all their possible sail in the ensuing chase but the frigate used her superior sailing qualities to get close enough to fire into
Le Général du Caen with her
chase guns, at which point she surrendered. Midway through 1805,
Carolines surgeon, the writer and disease expert
James Johnson, left the ship; through his travels with the ship he had compiled a series of geographical and medical notes, as well as naval anecdotes, that he used to produce a number of works including
The Oriental Voyager. In October 1806 the frigate was part of Rear-Admiral
Sir Thomas Troubridge's squadron blockading
Batavia, from where a large Dutch squadron had been threatening merchant shipping. On the morning of 18 October
Caroline took a small brig while on station. From September Commander
Henry Hart took command of the frigate as her acting-captain, still in Pellew's squadron. On 20 October the squadron left Madras for Gresik, the harbour that
Caroline and
Psyche had reconnoitered in August. The squadron arrived on 5 December and on 11 December attacked the port.
Caroline was used by Pellew as his
flagship for some of the operation after his actual flagship, the ship-of-the-line , grounded herself and her crew became intoxicated on a store of
liquor. When
Culloden grounded
Caroline was directly astern of her and it was thought that
Caroline would either hit
Culloden or have to run herself ashore to escape that, but through the quick use of a spare anchor the crisis was averted just before
Caroline hit the flagship's
stern. The squadron then burned the three Dutch ships-of-the-line present, and a large merchant ship, all of which had been scuttled by the Dutch, and destroyed the fort, its gun batteries, and the dockyard. Hart was in charge of the landings and then commanded the troops during the attack against the port's infrastructure. This action meant that the Dutch no longer had an active navy presence in the East Indies. A committee from Surabaya spoke with the squadron and stopped further destruction in return for their assistance in replenishing the squadron with food and other supplies. Having repaired and replenished themselves, the ships left Gresik on 17 December. Continuing her duties,
Caroline participated in an engagement with a series of batteries and
gunboats at the entrance of
Manila Bay soon after this. Despite having served for four years in the Indies, it was reported around this time that the crew had not become more seasoned to the climate and were still harshly affected by the heat, diseases and other effects present.
Persian Gulf campaign 1808–1809 In the first months of 1808
Caroline captured the merchant ships
Le Gustave and
Le Paroudi Patche. On 21 December Captain
Charles Gordon took over from Hart, and the frigate moved to operate in the
Persian Gulf to combat
pirates in November 1809. The same month,
Caroline assisted in destroying over eighty pirate vessels at
Ras-al-Khyma. This was a well-known pirate stronghold that was set to be attacked along with
Lingeh and
Laft.
Caroline was sailing alongside the frigate
HMS Chiffonne and several vessels of the
Bombay Marine; the smaller vessels bombarded the coast on 12 November in advance of a landing of troops including Gordon and marines from the frigate on 13 November. By 10 a.m. the town had been captured by the landing force and before 4 p.m. all the pirate ships had been set on fire and destroyed, as well as all the naval storehouses in the town. The troops re-embarked at midday on 14 November with
Caroline having only one man injured. While
Chiffonne continued to attack and burn pirate vessels on the coast,
Caroline was detached to convoy the transports containing the soldiers that had assisted in the attack. One of the ship's lieutenants later died of an illness contracted while fighting at Ras-al-Khyma.
Invasion of the Spice Islands 1810 In early 1810 Captain
Christopher Cole assumed command of
Caroline after requesting a transfer from his previous command, the frigate . The frigate briefly served as the flagship of Rear-Admiral
William O'Bryen Drury, who was now commander-in-chief, in April from where he organised the capture of
Amboyna Island. On 10 May
Caroline became the lead ship of a squadron including the frigate
HMS Piedmontaise, the brig-sloop , and the
gun-brig .
Mandarin was used as a transport to carry 100 soldiers of the
Madras Regiment, money, and provisions for the garrison of the recently captured Amboyna. While travelling to the island the squadron stopped at
Penang Island to embark artillerymen, two
field guns, and twenty
scaling ladders with the intent of assaulting
Banda Neira before reaching Amboyna. After a passage of over six weeks, the ships entered the
Java Sea on 23 July and approached Banda Neira on 8 August; Cole described the voyage as the most difficult he had ever made. Fearing that the Dutch would reinforce the island before they could attack it, the squadron had taken a quicker but more dangerous route than might have been expected. Banda Neira was a heavily guarded island, having been reinforced since its previous capture by the British in 1796 with two major forts and ten other batteries of guns. It had originally been planned that the squadron's ships would enter the harbour under the cover of darkness, but while attempting such they were fired on by a gun battery on the nearby Rosensgen Island, which the British had not been aware of, and retired. Instead the squadron's small boats were put into action, embarking soldiers and seamen in the evening. As the boats began to rendezvous together at 2 a.m. for the attack the weather turned for the worse with rain and thunder and many boats were swept off course, leaving 200 men to make the attack of which only 40 were soldiers. With a full-scale attack no longer possible, the boats available to Cole instead aimed to attack two batteries that could hinder the squadron as it attempted to enter the harbour again the following morning. The Dutch expected any landing to occur at the north of the island, where the previous one had, and thus by landing in a different location the boats gained the element of surprise. Landing in the rain, a 10-gun battery was taken quickly from behind with sixty prisoners captured for no casualties. Twenty minutes after this the force assaulted one of the two major forts,
Fort Belgica, mounting fifty-two cannons; the attack was initially successful when they used their ladders to scale the outer walls. The rain continued, making it impossible for the defending Dutch force to fire their cannons more than three times, but the attackers found their ladders too short to scale the inner walls of the fort. Instead the force rushed the main gateway which had been opened to allow Dutch officers that lived outside the fort to enter it. The fort's commandant and ten Dutch soldiers were killed in the attack with another four officers and forty men captured. In the morning the ships entered Banda Neira's harbour with
Caroline leading. The remaining batteries fired on the ships, but shots from the captured Fort Belgica and a threat to storm
Fort Nassau, the other major fort, brought defence of the island to an end. 120 guns and 700 Dutch soldiers were captured with no loss to the attacking force.
Carolines
first lieutenant, John Gilmour, commanded the frigate while Cole was ashore despite suffering from a severe illness, and took the captured colours of the forts to Drury. In celebration of the victory, the captains of
Piedmontaise and
Barracouta had a silver cup made for Cole, while the officers of the squadron and the officers of the Madras Regiment and artillery both presented him with swords worth 100 guineas. The capture was thought to be worth £600,000 for the captors, with there being £400,000 worth of
spice alone.
Caroline sailed for Madras on 15 August but Drury was absent attacking Mauritius, and so the ship instead went to Bombay for a refit. In September she brought the new governor and staff-officers to Banda Neira.
Invasion of Java 1811 In 1811
Caroline joined Drury's forces off the
Malabar Coast to prepare for an attack on
Java. On 6 March the now Vice-Admiral Drury suddenly died, leaving Cole to continue preparations in his stead until Rear-Admiral
Robert Stopford and Captain
William Robert Broughton arrived later in the year. By the time of the arrival of these senior officers Cole had almost completed the preparations for the invasion. On 4 August the large force under Stopford arrived in Chillingching Bay, east of Batavia.
Caroline was the lead frigate alongside
HMS Modeste and
HMS Bucephalus charged with covering the debarkation of the invasion forces on the beaches. It was found that no enemy forces were contesting the landing and that two batteries meant to be guarding the location were unfinished, so Cole ordered 8,000 men to land immediately from the boats of the frigates, successfully doing so before the Dutch (who had been rushing to reach the site) were able to respond. The Dutch having arrived to contest the invasion seven hours after the landing, Cole requested that he take 400 seamen ashore to further assist the soldiers, but his offer was declined and
Caroline played no further action in the invasion. Between 4 and 28 August at Java
Caroline had two men killed, three wounded, and one missing. , the last captain of
Caroline Cole was personally thanked for his actions by the
Governor-General of India Lord Minto and the commander-in-chief of the forces Major-General
Sir Samuel Auchmuty. The invasion was a success, and
Caroline was chosen to take Stopford's dispatches on the action back to Britain, arriving there on 15 December. The voyage took the ship ninety-four days, which was thought to be the second fastest passage from the East Indies to date. Cole was knighted on 29 May 1812 for his service, and the crew of
Caroline presented him with a sword worth 100 guineas and an epistle thanking him for his kindess and bravery while in command of them. ==Fate==