The good officer’s Naval General Service Medal 1793-1840, 1 Clasp: Algiers, awarded to Volunteer later Lieutenant John Watson Wakefield, Royal Navy. In the same year that he joined the navy he fought in the Bombardment of Algiers on 16 August 1816 when aboard the 36 gun frigate Hebrus, commanded by Captain Edmund Palmer in the successful action against the Dey of Algiers that resulted in the freeing of thousands of Christian slaves. Hebrus was initially held in reserve, in the expectation that she would fill any gaps in the line of battle as they opened up. Hebrus sailed forward in an attempt to fill the first of these spaces soon after the firing had begun, but so much Algerian fire was aimed towards her that she was forced to anchor a little behind the line, to port of the 104-gun ship of the line Queen Charlotte. The frigate Granicus then passed Hebrus and filled the open position next to Queen Charlotte, and both frigates joined the cannonade, during which on several occasions Granicus sent a man on board Hebrus to complain that the latter's shot was hitting the former. The bombardment continued until 9 p.m. when the ships ships sailed back out of range. Hebrus had four men killed and a further fifteen wounded in the engagement, and suffered from twenty-two roundshot hits. The crew spent the following night manning the pumps to remove the 1 foot 6 inches of water that was entering the ship's hull each hour. Hebrus was careened on 29 August to further inspect the damage, and then the following day was sent in close to shore to supervise the Christian ex-slaves being embarked in the transports. The crew were also employed in weighting down the bodies that had been thrown from the ships during the bombardment and that were now floating back to the surface. In all only 8 officers and 44 ratings / marines from Hebrus lived to claim the clasp Algiers. Having gone on to see service on the North America, South Africa, East Indies and West Indies Station, he passed for Mate in 1822 and was placed on half-pay in August 1827 shortly after promotion to Lieutenant.
Naval General Service Medal 1793-1840, 1 Clasp: Algiers; (JOHN W. WAKEFIELD, VOLR.), with length of original ribbon
Condition; very light contact wear, overall about Good Very Fine.
John Watson Wakefield first entered the Royal Navy in 1816, as a Volunteer on board the 36 gun frigate Hebrus, commanded by Captain Edmund Palmer, and as such on 16 August 1816 was present at the bombardment of Algiers.
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the Royal Navy no longer needed the Barbary states as a source of supplies for Gibraltar and their fleet in the Mediterranean Sea. This freed Britain to exert considerable political pressure to force the Barbary states to end their piracy and practice of enslaving European Christians.
In early 1816, Exmouth undertook a diplomatic mission to Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, backed by a small squadron of ships of the line, to convince the Deys to stop the practice and free the Christian slaves. The Deys of Tunis and Tripoli agreed without any resistance, but the Dey of Algiers was more recalcitrant and the negotiations were stormy. Exmouth believed that he had managed to negotiate a treaty to stop the slavery of Christians and returned to England. However, due to confused orders, Algerian troops massacred 200 Corsican, Sicilian, and Sardinian fishermen who were under British protection just after the treaty was signed. This caused outrage in Britain and Europe, and Exmouth's negotiations were seen as a failure.
As a result, Exmouth was ordered to sea again to complete the job and punish the Algerians. He gathered a squadron of five ships of the line, one 50-gun spar-decked frigate (H.M.S Leander), four conventional frigates (HMS Severn, Glasgow, Granicus, and Hebrus), and five bomb ships (HMS Belzebub, Fury, Hecla, and Infernal). HMS Queen Charlotte —100 guns—was his flagship and Rear Admiral David Milne was his second in command aboard HMS Impregnable, 98 guns. This squadron was considered by many to be an insufficient force, but Exmouth had already unobtrusively surveyed the defences of Algiers; he was very familiar with the town, and was aware of a weakness in the field of fire of the defensive batteries. He believed that more large ships would have interfered with each other without being able to bring much more fire to bear. In addition to the main fleet, there were four sloops (HMS Heron, Mutine, Cordelia, and Britomart), eight ships' boats armed with Congreve rockets, and some transports to carry the rescued slaves.
When the British arrived in Gibraltar, a squadron of five Dutch frigates (Melampus, Frederica, Dageraad, Diana, and Amstel) and the corvette Eendragt, led by Vice-Admiral Theodorus Frederick van Capellen, offered to join the expedition. Exmouth decided to assign them to cover the main force from Algerian flanking batteries, as there was insufficient space in the mole for the Dutch frigates.
The day before the attack, the frigate Prometheus arrived and its captain W. B. Dashwood attempted to secretly rescue the British Consul and his wife and infant. Some of the rescue party was discovered and arrested. The attack was described by the U.S. Consul.
The plan of attack was for the larger ships to approach in a column. They were to sail into the zone where the majority of the Algerian guns could not be brought to bear. Then, they were to come to anchor and bombard the batteries and fortifications on the mole to destroy the defences. Simultaneously, HMS Leander—50 guns—was to anchor off the mouth of the harbour and bombard the shipping inside the mole. To protect Leander from the shore battery, frigates HMS Severn and Glasgow were to sail inshore and bombard the battery. Troops would then storm ashore on the mole with sappers of the Royal Engineers
Exmouth in Queen Charlotte anchored approximately 80 yd (73 m) off the mole, facing the Algerian guns. However, a number of the other ships anchored out of position, notably Admiral Milne aboard HMS Impregnable, who was 400 yards from where he should have been. This error reduced the effectiveness of these ships and exposed them to fiercer Algerian fire. Some of the other ships sailed past Impregnable and anchored in positions closer to the plan. The unfortunate gap created by the misplaced HMS Impregnable was closed by the frigate HMS Granicus and the sloop Heron.
In their earlier negotiations, both Exmouth and the Dey of Algiers had stated that they would not fire the first shot. The Dey's plan was to allow the fleet to anchor and then to sortie from the harbour and board the ships with large numbers of men in small boats. But Algerian discipline was less effective and one Algerian gun fired a shot at 15:15. Exmouth immediately began the bombardment.
The Algerian flotilla of 40 gunboats made an attempt to board Queen Charlotte while the sailors were aloft setting sail, but twenty eight of their boats were sunk by broadsides, and the remaining ran themselves on shore. After an hour, the cannon on the mole were effectively silenced, and Exmouth turned his attention to the shipping in the harbour, which was destroyed by 19:30. One unmanned Algerine frigate was destroyed after being boarded by the crew of Queen Charlotte's barge, who then set it on fire. Three other Algerine frigates and five corvettes were destroyed by the fire of mortars and rockets. The burning shipping drifting in the harbour forced some bombarding ships to manoeuvre out of their way.
Impregnable was isolated from the other ships and made a large and tempting target, attracting attention from the Algerian gunners who raked her fore and aft, severely damaging her. 268 shots hit the hull, and the main mast was damaged in 15 places, with 50 killed and 164 wounded.
The fleet also bombarded the city, but there was comparatively little damage as the construction of the houses resulted in cannonballs passing through their walls, leaving neat holes, without destroying them. The explosive mortar shells and rockets caused some destruction to domestic buildings, and the shipping in the harbour burned so fiercely that the warehouses nearby caught fire and burned down.
One sloop had been fitted out as an explosion vessel, with 143 barrels of gunpowder aboard, and Milne asked at 20:00 that it be used against the "Lighthouse battery", which was mauling his ship. The vessel was exploded, but to little effect and against the wrong battery.
Despite this, the Algerian batteries could not maintain fire and, by 22:15, Exmouth gave the order for the fleet to weigh anchor and sail out of range, leaving HMS Minden to keep firing to suppress any further resistance. The wind had changed and was blowing from the shore, which helped the fleets depart. By 01:30 the next morning, the fleet was anchored out of range. The wounded were treated, and the crew cleared the damage caused by the Algerian guns. Casualties on the British side were 128 killed and 690 wounded, (16 percent killed or wounded). As a comparison, the British casualties at the Battle of Trafalgar had been only 9 percent. The allied squadron had fired over 50,000 round shot using 118 tons of gunpowder, and the bomb vessels had fired 960 explosive mortar shells. The Algerian forces had had 308 guns and 7 mortars.
The following day at noon, Exmouth sent the following letter to the Dey: "Sir, for your atrocities at Bona on defenceless Christians, and your unbecoming disregard of the demands I made yesterday in the name of the Prince Regent of England, the fleet under my orders has given you a signal chastisement, by the total destruction of your navy, storehouse, and arsenal, with half your batteries. As England does not war for the destruction of cities, I am unwilling to visit your personal cruelties upon the unoffending inhabitants of the country, and I therefore offer you the same terms of peace which I conveyed to you yesterday in my Sovereign's name. Without the acceptance of these terms, you can have no peace with England."
He warned that if they were not accepted, then he would continue the action. The Dey accepted the terms, not realising that they were a bluff, as the fleet had already fired off almost all of its ammunition. A treaty was signed on September 24, 1816. The room it was signed in had been hit by nine round shot and was a perfect ruin. The Dey freed 1,083 Christian slaves and the British Consul and repaid the ransom money taken in 1816, about £80,000. Over 3000 slaves in total were later freed. Drescher notes Algiers as 'the sole case in the sixty years of British slave trade suppression in which a large number of British lives were lost in actual combat.’ However, despite British naval efforts it has been difficult to assess the long-term impact of the Bombardment of Algiers as the Dey reconstructed Algiers, replacing Christian slaves with Jewish labour, and the Barbary slave trade continued under subsequent Deys.
For this acton Hebrus was initially kept in reserve, alongside the 36-gun frigate Granicus and the smaller vessels, in the expectation that they would fill any gaps in the line of battle as they opened up. Hebrus sailed forward in an attempt to fill the first of these spaces soon after the firing had begun, but so much Algerian fire was aimed towards her that she was forced to anchor a little behind the line, to port of the 104-gun ship of the line Queen Charlotte. Granicus then passed Hebrus and filled the open position next to Queen Charlotte, and both frigates joined the cannonade, during which on several occasions Granicus sent a man on board Hebrus to complain that the latter's shot was hitting the former.
The bombardment continued until 9 p.m. when Pellew's ships sailed back out of range. Hebrus had four men killed and a further fifteen wounded in the engagement.
Hebrus had taken twenty-two roundshot hits from the Algerian fire, and the crew spent the following night manning the pumps to remove the 1 foot 6 inches (0.46 m) of water that was entering the ship's hull each hour. Hebrus was careened on 29 August to further inspect the damage, and then the following day was sent in close to shore to supervise the Christian ex-slaves being embarked in the transports. The crew were also employed in weighting down the bodies that had been thrown from the ships during the bombardment and that were now floating back to the surface. Hebrus was ordered back to Gibraltar on 4 September, before on 4 October the fleet returned to Plymouth
In all only 8 officers and 44 ratings / marines from Hebrus lived to claim the clasp Algiers.
Watson served afterwards as Midshipman in North America and the East Indies in the 40 gun frigate Forth and the 60 gun Leander, the latter bearing the flag of the Honourable Sir Henry Blackwood. Having passed his examination for Mate in 1822, he hen saw service on the Home, South American, and West India stations, when aboard the Apollo yacht under Captain the Honourable Sir Charles Paget; the Éclair sloop and Doris 42, both being commanded by Captain William James Hope Johnstone; and the 50 gun warship Barham, she being the flag-ship of the Honourable Charles Elphinstone Flemming. He returned home from the West Indies in the 29 8 gun frigate Rattlesnake, commanded by Captain John Leith, and shortly after his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant on 20 August 1827, he was then placed on half-pay.
