A CASED LLOYDS PATRIOTIC FUND SWORD OF £50 TYPE PRESENTED TO CAPTAIN HENRY MERITON OF THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY`S SHIP EXETER, 1804, BY RICHARD TEED, SWORD CUTLER, LANCASTER COURT, STRAND with reblued, curved, fullered blade (cleaned, no decoration visible), gilt-brass hilt comprising quillons formed as fasces, langets applied with Naval trophies, knuckle-guard formed as Hercules` club entwined by a serpent and the back-piece as the pelt of the Nemean Lion; finely chequered ivory grip secured at the base by a laurel wreath, in its original, gilt-brass-mounted fishskin-covered wooden scabbard, the mounts cast and chased with Classical scenes including Hercules and the Nemean Lion and Hercules and the Lernean Hydra, the locket inscribed `Exeter`, with belt and slings, in a Lloyds fitted mahogany case lined with blue velvet, the lid fitted with brass carrying handle and plaque, the latter recently engraved `From the Patriotic Fund, Lloyds London to H. Meriton Esqr H.E.I.Co`s Ship Exeter 1804`, the interior with label including the maker`s name, 76.8cm; 30 1/8in blade Literature Frederick Wilkinson, Edged Weapons, 1970, p. 150, illustrated.This sword is one of fifteen Patriotic Fund swords of £50 value awarded to the ships` captains of the East India Company`s `China Fleet` involved in the celebrated engagement with the French of 15th February 1804 now known as `Dance`s Action`. All fifteen of these swords have the name of the relevant ship engraved in a scroll on the offside of the upper part of their scabbards. This feature, unique to the Fund`s £50 swords for `Dance`s Action`, enables this sword to be confidently associated with Captain Henry Meriton, captain of the Indiaman EXETER on that famous occasion - a sea battle memorably fictionalised by Patrick O`Brian in chapter nine of his `Jack Aubrey` novel H.M.S. Surprise (London, 1973).The `China Fleet` of Dance`s Action comprised sixteen homeward-bound Indiamen laden with cargo worth an estimated £8 million and eleven `country ships` sailing from China to India. It sailed without naval escort, being reliant upon the size of the Indiamen - easily mistaken at a distance for British 64- or even 74-gun warships - and the pugnacious spirit of their captains to fight off a French force known to be lurking in wait for them. The fleet and its predators, a squadron commanded by the French admiral Linois, met off Pulo Aor at the entrance to the Malacca Straits late on 14th February 1804. The fleet`s commodore, Captain Nathaniel Dance (1748-1827), was advised by some Royal Naval officer-passengers and, when the French were sighted, adopted tactics that were typical of the Royal Navy in order to delude Linois into thinking that he had met a powerful naval force and not a convoy of armed merchantmen: as night fell, he sent the country ships inshore and formed line of battle. The following morning, three of Dance`s ships hoisted blue ensigns and pennants - a tactic intended to reinforce the impression that they were line-of-battle ships of the Royal Navy - and the line stood on for the mouth of the Malacca Straits. At this, Linois signalled his ships to attack the rear of the line. Dance`s riposte was to signal his ships to tack in succession, bear down upon the French and engage them - not a manoeuvre that Linois might have expected from a convoy of merchantmen. The first six Indiamen, led by ROYAL GEORGE - the largest of them, approached the French squadron resolutely and in the face of French gunfire, so unnerving Linois by their evident enthusiasm for the fight and threat to surround and overwhelm his ships that he broke off the engagement after forty minutes and before the remaining Indiamen could join it. The Indiamen suffered only one casualty in the action and, after collecting a Royal Naval escort at St Helena, returned safely with their cargo and to enormous popular acclaim. Dance was knighted, lavishly rewarded and pensioned and received a sword of £100 value from the Patriotic Fund; each of his fifteen captains were also rewarded and each received a £50 sword, of which this is one. Henry Meriton (1762-1826) was born in Rotherhithe and served a seven-year apprenticeship in the brigantine JOHN AND RICHARD on the West Indies trade, working his way up from gunner to ship`s master, before joining the East India Company`s maritime service in 1783. For the next decade, he served on four Indiamen, progressing from 3rd mate to 1st mate and being one of the two survivors from the crew of HALSEWELL when she was wrecked off the Isle of Purbeck in 1786. He joined EXETER as 1st mate on her maiden voyage in 1793 and made three voyages in her, to Bombay and China and back, before being appointed her captain in 1799. On his first voyage to China as captain of EXETER, Meriton distinguished himself in an action off the Brazilian coast on 4th August 1800 when, under cover of darkness, he captured a French frigate, MÉDÉE, that he had pursued and whose captain believed he was menaced by a large British man-of-war. Dance`s Action, in which EXETER was not actively engaged, took place during his penultimate voyage as captain of that ship. In 1809 he was appointed captain of CEYLON, aboard which he was severely wounded and captured during an action in the Indian Ocean on 3rd July 1810, in which a French frigate squadron attacked and seized the greater part of a convoy of Indiamen. Taken to Mauritius, then called Île de France, with his ship, Meriton was released when the island was captured by the British in December 1810; he may have captained the Indiaman SOVEREIGN on a voyage in 1813-14. By 1816, Meriton had been appointed Superintendent of Marine and President of the Marine Board in Bombay, positions that he held until early 1826 when he returned home. Meriton died in Greenwich on 7th August 1826. See A. Farrington 1999, p. 536; the same author 1999, pp. 116 & 237-238; and J. Wright 1997, pp. 30-32.
