A fine 2-clasp 'Boat Service' N.G.S. awarded to Captain of the Forecastle Thomas Melvill, wh...

A fine 2-clasp ‘Boat Service’ N.G.S. awarded to Captain of the Forecastle Thomas Melvill, who participated in the boats of the Bacchante in three hard-fought actions which resulted in the capture of thirty-three enemy vessels on the Adriatic coast Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, 1 & 18 Sep Boat Service 1812, 6 Jan Boat Service 1813 (Thomas Melvill.) light contact marks to edge and small bruise to Queen’s cheek, otherwise very fine £7,000-£9,000 --- Provenance: Payne Collection 1911; Hamilton Smith Collection, Glendining’s, November 1927; Glendining’s, July 1975; Spink, March 1995; John Goddard Collection, Dix Noonan Webb, November 2015. 1 & 18 Sep Boat Service 1812 [21 issued] - 8 known, including examples in the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Marines Museum (2).

6 Jan Boat Service 1813 [26 issued] - 9 known, including examples in the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Marines Museum (2).

Thomas Melvill (Melvin on Baccante’s muster list) is confirmed on the rolls as Captain of the Forecastle aboard the Bacchante for both clasps. Born in Fifeshire, he joined the Bacchante in that rate on 31 October 1811.

On 1 September 1812, a party of 65 officers and men in five boats from Bacchante, under the command of First Lieutenant Donat Henchy O’Brien, cut out and captured two French gunboats, the xebec Tisiphone and seven vessels of a convoy in Port Lemo, Istria, in the Adriatic. ‘On his approach to the xebec with muffled oars, Lieutenant O’Brien was hailed by a stentorian voice “come alongside you English bastards”. O’Brien, without correcting the speaker on his national antecedents, thanked him for his polite invitation and assured him he would be with him immediately - he was, the British sprang on board the enemy vessel and the Frenchmen after discharging an ineffectual volley of grape and musketry, dropped their lighted matches and jumped overboard.’ The second date on this clasp does not appear on the official list and some authorities state it to be an official error not relating to the award at all. However, as will be seen from the following extract from The Royal Navy by W. Laird Clowes, it was obviously an error in the original Gazette notice that was clearly corrected prior to the issue of the double-dated clasp:

‘On September 18th [1812], having chased a convoy in the passage between Vasto and the island of Tremiti, off the coast of Apulia, Captain William Hoste, of the Bacchante 38, despatched his six boats, under Lieutenants Donat Henchy O’Brien and Silas Thomson Hood, to follow up the enemy, the wind having failed the frigate. The convoy, of eighteen merchantmen, anchored and hauled aground, having outside of it eight armed vessels, carrying among them eight long guns, six swivels, and 104 men. The attacking party numbered only 72, but it rowed in with such determination, and boarded with such dash, that the enemy fled incontinently, leaving the entire convoy to the victors.’ Both of the distinguished actions of 1st and 18th September are reported in the London Gazette of 1813, pp 163-4. Lieutenant O’Brien was promoted to Commander on 22 January 1813, for this and previous actions.

At dawn on 6 January 1813, when H.M. ships Bacchante and Weazle were lying becalmed to the south-east of Cape Otranto, five French gunboats were observed, three in the south-west making for Otranto and two heading south-east. The Weazle was directed to attend to the smaller division and Lieutenant Donat Henchy O’Brien to the larger one in Bacchante’s barge. At 8.00 am, after a long pull, Lieutenant O’Brien overtook and captured the sternmost gunboat of two guns. This was left in the hands of Midshipman Thomas Hoste, who, after securing the prisoners, worked the bow-gun of the prize against her late friends. Lieutenant O’Brien pushed on and captured the two other gunboats making towards Calabria. The Weazle, unable to catch up with the smaller division, sent in two boats under the orders of Lieutenant Thomas Wholey and, together with another boat from the Bacchante, under the orders of Master’s Mate Edward Webb, boarded and carried the two gunboats successively, each after a determined resistance.