On 22 December 1808, [HMS] Fama left Karlskrona as part of the escort of the last British convoy of the year leaving the Baltic. She was in company with four other British warships - the frigate Salsette, the brig-sloop Magnet, the gun-brig Urgent, and the Salorman - three Swedish naval vessels and twelve merchant vessels. Unfortunately, the convoy left after an unusually severe winter had set in. Furthermore, a storm coming from the north drove already formed ice onto the convoy.

On 23 December Fama ran aground on the NE point of the island of Bornholm, in the Baltic. Lieutenant Topping, a crew man, and a woman died of exposure overnight. The next day the Danes passed lines to the brig. Although four men and a woman died trying to reach the shore, the Danes were able to rescue, and capture, the survivors. The subsequent court martial blamed the master for having altered course without notifying Topping and for having lost sight of Salsette. The board ordered that the master be reprimanded.

The convoy and its escorts were ill-fated, with Magnet and Salorman also being lost, as were most of the merchantmen, many of which the Danes captured or destroyed.

Today's event is taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Fama_(1808)