HMS Assistance (1781)
HMS Assistance was a John Williams designed Portland Class 50 gun fourth rate ship, built by Peter Baker at Liverpool. Ordered on the 11th of February, 1778, laid down on the 4th of July in that same year, and launched on the 12th of March, 1781, she was completed by 31st of December in that year, at a cost of £10,908.3.3d.
History GREAT BRITAIN Name: HMS Assistance Ordered: 11 February 1778 Builder: Peter Baker, Liverpool Laid down: 4 July 1778 Launched: 12 March 1781 Completed: By 31 December 1781 Fate: Wrecked on 29 March 1802
General characteristics
Class and type: Portland Class 50 gun fourth rate ship Tons burthen: 1,053 37⁄94 (bm) Length:
- 145 ft 1 in (44.2 m) (overall)
- 119 ft 9 in (36.5 m) (keel)
Beam: 40 ft 8 in (12.4 m) Depth of hold: 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) Propulsion: Sails Sail plan: Full rigged ship Armament:
- Upper deck: 22 × 12 pdrs
- Lower deck: 22 × 24 pdrs
- Quarter deck: 4 × 6 pdrs
- Forecastle: 2 × 6pdrs
Service.
Assistance was commissioned in the January of 1781 and entered service in the Channel under her first commander, Captain James Worth.
In the May of 1782 she escorted a convoy to North America, returning to Britain to be paid off at Plymouth in the January of 1783 after wartime service. Assistance was then fitted for Ordinary in the following month, but then, between the July and September of that year, refitted as a Flagship for £ 4,387.9.11d. She returned to North America in the following month under the command of Captain William Bentinck flying the broad pendant of Captain Sir Charles Douglas, and based in Nova Scotia. Serving on Assistance at this time was Lieutenant Hamilton Douglas Halyburton, the son of Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton. He and a party of men were sent out in Assistance's barge to chase deserters, but, landing in the dark and in a snowstorm, they became trapped in mud. When the snowstorm cleared two days later, all 13 of the party had died from exposure. "Had they landed fifty yards on either side from the place they became stranded, the company would have escaped." A memorial was later erected by Lt Halyburton's mother, Katherine, Countess of Morton. Captain Nicholas Sawyer took command in the January of 1784, flying the broad pendant of Captain Herbert Sawyer.
Assistance returned to Britain in mid-1786 and was paid off. She underwent Middling repairs at Chatham between the June of 1789 and the May of 1790 costing £15,259. Then fitted for sea in the August of that year at a cost of a further £4,474. having been recommissioned during that July under Captain Lord James Cranstoun for the Spanish Armament. The easing of tensions led to Assistance being paid off in the September of 1791, before recommissioning the following year under Captain John Samuel Smith in order to serve off Newfoundland and North America again. She became the Flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Richard King on the Halifax station from the August of 1792 until the end of the January of 1793 when Captain Arthur Legge took command in the following month, being replaced in his turn by Captain Nathan Brunton in the July of that year for service cruising with the Channel Fleet. Captain Henry Mowatt then assumed command from the May of 1795, returning the Assistance to the Halifax station in the March of 1796, where he captured the 40 gun French frigate L’Elizabeth on the 28th of August, 1796. Mowatt died in the April of 1798, and was succeeded to the command by Captain John Oakes Hardy, and then from the December of1799 by Captain Robert Hall. Hall sailed Assistance home from Halifax for repairs at Chatham which took place between the October of 1800 and the January of 1801, at a cost of £8,379. She then recommissioned under Captain Richard Lee for a return to the Halifax station.
Fate.
Having returned to the Chanel, on the 29th of March, 1802, Assistance was en route from Dunkirk to Portsmouth when she ran aground on a sandbank near Gravelines. Efforts to free her were unsuccessful, and the impact of waves against her beached hull quickly rendered the vessel unserviceable. The beaching was visible from the Flemish shore, and a local pilot boat and several fishing boats put to sea to come to her aid. By late afternoon Captain Lee accepted that Assistance was stuck fast and unable to sail; he and the crew then abandoned her. Two marines drowned while attempting to swim to one of the fishing boats, but the remainder of the crew were safely carried to shore in the Flemish craft. The surviving crew members then made their way to Dunkirk, where a ship was hired to return them to England.
A court martial was convened ten days later, to be held aboard HMS Brilliant. Blame for Assistance's loss was laid at the feet of her pilots, Watson Riches and Edmund Coleman, who were found to have acted negligently in not guiding the ship clear of the charted sandbanks off the Gravelines shore. The two men were fined, and jailed for six months in the Marshalsea Prison. For his part, Captain Lee was admonished for placing the too much trust in the pilots, and for not showing due regard for the safety of his ship. No formal penalty was imposed, though Lee was denied a new naval command for the following three years. He returned to active service in 1805, as captain of the 74 gun HMS Courageux.
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