HMS Resistance was an 18pdr armed, 38 gun, fifth rate frigate of the Lively Class, built under contract for the Royal Navy by Charles Ross at his shipyard at Acorn Wharf, Rochester.
The Lively Class was a group of 16 large sailing frigates designed by Sir William Rule, Co-Surveyor of the Navy. They were regarded as the finest frigates to come out of British shipyards at the time because they were fast, manoeuvrable, powerfully armed and very seaworthy. Their design was based on that of a captured French frigate, the Hebe, taken by the Royal Navy towards the end of the American War of Independence in 1782. By the time the Hebe had been repaired and refitted for British service, the war was over, so the Royal Navy never really got the chance to assess her performance in combat. Once the French Revolutionary War had broken out in 1793, the now HMS Hebe proved her worth and the Royal Navy wanted more ships like her. The design of HMS Hebe was also used as the basis for the much more numerous Leda Class frigates, which were very similar to the Lively Class. Unlike the Lively Class, two examples of Leda Class frigates still exist; the teak-built HMS Trincomalee, launched at Bombay in 1817, now fully restored, afloat and on display at Hartlepool and the oak-built HMS Unicorn, built at the Royal Dockyard, Chatham to an improved version of the design and launched in 1824 and which is on display at Dundee. The Hebe was the lead ship of a group of six frigates built for the French Navy and this led to the ironic situation where opposing nations in a global war were operating warships of the same design.
The contract for the construction of HMS Resistance was signed on 7th November 1803. Once the 1/48 scale drawings had been expanded to full size in chalk on Charles Ross' mould loft floor, they were used to make moulds or templates which were used by the shipwrights to mark out the full-sized timbers to be used in the ship's construction. Once the sawyers had cut out the first timbers, the first keel section of what was to become HMS Resistance was laid on the slipway at Acorn Wharf in March of 1804. The project proceeded rapidly. Once the keel was complete, the first sections of the stem-post and the stern-post were attached to the ends of the keel with timber trenails and reinforced by deadwoods. The assembly was guyed up with ropes while the ribs were attached to the keel, again with trenails. The beams were put into place as each rib was assembled and reinforced with knees and the ribs were joined together with a number of stringers, running inside each rib from the stem post to the stern post. The lower sections of the ribs were then further reinforced by the keelson, which lay on top of them, secured through the ribs into the keel itself. All this made the frame of the ship rigid, with little, if any movement. Once the frame was complete, the hull planking was put into place, with individual planks cut and steamed into shape before being secured to the frame with yet more trenails. The deck planking was also installed. The hull and decks were then waterproofed with oakum driven hard between the planks. Red lead putty was used to seal the caulking on the hull, with pitch being used on the decks. Once all the fixtures and fittings were installed, the ship was painted, the hull buff with black boot topping from the waterline up to about three or four feet above. The gunwales at the top of the hull were painted blue and the inside of the hull bright red. Finally, the lower hull was sheathed in the best Welsh copper. Because Charles Ross' shipyard was so close to the Royal Dockyard at Chatham, the coppering was done in situ at the shipyard while the ship was still on the slipway. With vessels built in shipyards further afield, they were taken to the one of the Royal Dockyards, drydocked and coppered as part of the fitting-out process. In those cases, the cost of the copper would have been deducted from the final bill for the ship. In the cases where ships were coppered at the shipyard, the copper plates were made in the Royal Dockyard and taken to the shipyard to be fitted, secured into place with copper nails.
On Saturday 10th August 1805, HMS Resistance was launched into the River Medway with all due ceremony and in the presence of the Resident Commissioner at Chatham, who would have arrived in his barge to witness the event. The project would have been monitored by overseers appointed into each shipyard by the Navy Board to make sure the project was proceeding properly and that the ship was being built within the specifications. After her launch, HMS Resistance was taken the mile or so downstream to the great Royal Dockyard at Chatham to be fitted out, but before fitting out began, she was inspected by the Dockyard's shipwrights to make sure that her build quality was satisfactory and only then would the final instalment be paid to Mr Ross. Charles Ross' bill for the construction of HMS Resistance came to £20,683, which had been agreed before the contract to build her was signed. Any cost overruns would have had to be met by Mr Ross and there were penalties to be deducted from the final bill for late delivery. With the ship secured to a mooring bouy in the Medway, a sheer hulk was used to lift the lower masts into place. These had been made in the lower mast house at Chatham and stored in the South Mast Pond until the ship was ready to receive them. At this point, they were towed out into the river to be lifted into place. The upper masts, the topmasts and topgallant masts were floated out, lifted on to the deck and then hauled up into place from the deck and secured into place with large wooden pegs known as fids. The yards were floated out and like the upper masts, were lifted onto the deck and then hauled up into place. All the time this was going on, the miles of standing and running rigging were installed as the masts and yards were assembled. The sails were carried to the ship in a lighter or a hoy and were bent onto the yards with the rigging installed as this happened. All the while this was going on, the gun carriages and carronade slides were brought aboard and assembled with the guns themselves coming in lighters from the Gun Wharf. The gun deck guns were lifted into the ship through the gun ports and secured onto their carriages. The many tons of stores were brought aboard and stowed in the ship's hold. Finally, on Saturday 19th October 1805, HMS Resistance was declared complete. Fitting her out at Chatham Royal Dockyard had cost a further £12,382 and the ship commissioned into the Channel Fleet under Captain Charles Adam.
While the ship was fitting out, Captain Adam was busy recruiting his commissioned and Warrant officers who would form the backbone of the crew. He would have been liasing with the local Impressment Service who would have sorted the men brought aboard the receiving ship by the press gangs and those who volunteered for service. They would need to be sorted out between men who had experience of Naval service, Petty Officers, Able and Ordinary seamen. Men with no previous seagoing experience would have been classed as Landsmen, unskilled labourers aboard the ship. A fifth rate frigate like HMS Resistance would have three lieutenants, ranked in order of seniority, First, Second and Third Lieutenant. In addition to these men, there were the senior Warrant Officers, men such as the Sailing Master, responsible for the day-to-day sailing and navigation of the ship, the Boatswain, responsible for the maintenance and repair of the ship's rigging, the Gunner, the Surgeon, the Purser, the Cook etc. All these men had Mates to assist them; middle-ranking Warrant Officers. The Midshipmen would have been carefully selected and would have been sons of friends, family and people to whom the captain either owed a favour to or people who had begged a favour from him. The ship's complement of Royal Marines would have come aboard as a unit, with a Captain of Marines and a Lieutenant of Marines to assist him. Captain Adam would have been soley responsible for moulding all these men into a single, efficient unit, able to operate their ship seamlessly under all conditions and in all weathers.
On completion, HMS Resistance was a ship of 1,081 tons. She was 154ft 1in long on her gun deck and 159ft 8in along the keel. She was 39ft 7in wide across the beams, her hold was 13ft 6in deep, fully loaded she drew 10ft 10in of water at the bow and 15ft 3in at the rudder. HMS Resistance was armed with 28 x18pdr long guns on the gun deck, 2 x 32pdr carronades and 2 x 9pdr long guns on the forecastle with 2 x 9pdr long guns and 12 x 32pdr carronades on the quarterdeck. There was a further dozen half-pounder swivel guns on her quarterdeck and forecastle handrails and in her fighting tops. This means that although officially rated as being a ship of 38 guns, she actually carried 46. HMS Resistance was manned by a crew of 284 officers, men, boys and Royal Marines.
Lively Class PlansOrlop Plan:
Lower Deck or Berth Deck Plan:
Upper Deck or Gundeck Plan:
Quarterdeck and Forecastle Plan:
Inboard Profile and Plan:
Framing Plan:
Sheer Plan and Lines:
A model of HMS Lacedaemonian, also a Lively Class frigate. HMS Resistance would have been identical. Notice how the gangways linking the forecastle and the quarterdeck are wider and the space between them, the boat booms, are grated over. This creates the impression of the ship's upper decks being an almost continuous space, very similar to the large spar-decked frigates built a few years earlier by the United States Navy. Also notice how the ship's decorations are on a far less lavish scale than older ships. Since about the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, ships were fitted with less and less decoration so that by the time HMS Resistance was built, it was almost non-existent.
Captain Adam was young for his rank. At the time he took command of HMS Resistance on Tuesday 27th August while she was still fitting out at Chatham, he was still two months short of his 25th birthday. He was the nephew of Captain George Keith Elphinstone, who eventually became the First Baron Keith. He had joined the Royal Navy at the age of ten, on 15th December 1790, in the Royal Yacht HMY Royal Charlotte. He was rated as an Able Seaman and was on the Royal Charlotte's books as a Captain's Servant. In reality though, he was serving as a Midshipman-in-Ordinary, wearing the uniform and performing the role of a Midshipman proper and his uncle had arranged for him to be on the ship via a friend, Captain Sir Hyde Parker. On the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in February 1793, his uncle had rejoined the Royal Navy in command of the 74 gun third rate ship of the line HMS Robust. By this time, the young Charles Adam had gained enough sea time to be appointed as a Midshipman proper and when his uncle took command of HMS Robust, he made sure his nephew was also appointed in the ship. From then on, Adam followed his uncle from appointment to appointment. When Elphinstone was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1794, Adam was appointed Midshipman in his uncle's flagship, the 98 gun Second Rate ship of the line HMS Glory, where he saw action at the Battle of the Glorious First of June. The young man turned out to be somewhat of a prodigy, regardless of the assistance given to his career by his uncle. He was made Acting-Lieutenant in 1795 at the age of 15 and passed his examination for Lieutenant on 8th February 1798, still eight months short of his 18th birthday. Thanks to his uncle's influence, he wasn't to wait long for his own command and was made Master and Commander in the 4pdr armed brig-sloop HMS Falcon of 14 guns on 16th May 1798, still short of his 18th birthday. Charles Adam was posted or promoted to captain on 12th June 1799 aged just 18 years and six months. HMS Resistance was his third appointment as captain, his first being the ex-French 18pdr armed 38 gun frigate HMS Sybille, which had been captured from the French by HMS Romney (50) at the Battle of Mykonos on 17th June 1794. Ironically, the Sybille was a Hebe Class frigate originally built for the French Navy and had been pretty much identical to HMS Resistance.
On joining the Channel Fleet, HMS Resistance was assigned to the squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, flying his command flag in the 80-gun two decked Third Rate ship of the line HMS Foudroyant. In addition to HMS Resistance and HMS Foudroyant were the 98 gun Second Rate ship of the line HMS London, the 74 gun Third Rate ships of the line HMS Ramillies, HMS Namur, HMS Hero and HMS Repulse, the 18pdr armed 38 gun Frigate HMS Amazon and the Gun-Brig HMS Locust of 12 guns.
On 7th March 1806, the squadron captured the Spanish merchant vessel El Dragona, Pedro Gowsteodo, Master.
At about 03:00 on 13th March, the squadron was patrolling off the Canary Islands. In view of her slow sailing, HMS London had been stationed upwind of the other ships in the squadron and at that time, her lookouts sighted two sails a short distance away. Assuming the strangers were a convoy, HMS London altered course to investigate, signalling her intentions to the Rear-Admiral. A short while later, the strangers were identified as being the French 74 gun ship of the line Marengo and the French 40 gun frigate La Belle Poule. As soon as his ship was with in range, Captain Harry Neale of HMS London gave the order to open fire. At 05:30, HMS London drew up alongside the Marengo and the two ships began to pound each other at point blank range. At 06:00, the Marengo's captain had had enough of this and attempted to make off, closely pursued by HMS London. At 06:30, La Belle Poule passed ahead of HMS London and fired a broadside into her lee bow and received fire in return before making off. At 07:00, HMS Amazon overtook HMS London in pursuit of the Belle Poule, caught and engaged her at about 08:30. HMS London in the meantime kept up a running fight against the Marengo which continued until 10:25, when on sighting HMS Foudroyant coming up to join the fight, the Marengo struck her colours in surrender to HMS London. At about the same time, the Belle Poule surrendered to HMS Amazon. HMS Resistance did not take part in the fighting during the Action of 13th March 1806, but by agreement between the commanders in the squadron, the prize-money for the two ships captured was shared amongst the entire squadron.
By early 1807, HMS Resistance had been reassigned to the Irish Station and on 21st January 1807, she captured the Spanish schooner La Victoria. On 21st October, in company with the 12pdr armed 32 gun frigate HMS Success and the cutter HMS Sprightly of 12 guns, HMS Resistance captured the French sloop Adelaide, with a cargo of groceries. On 27th December, HMS Resistance captured the French privateer lugger L'Aigle of 14 guns
The year 1808 got off to a good start for the officers and crew of HMS Resistance. On 26th January, HMS Resistance was in company with the 18pdr armed 38 gun frigate HMS Boadicea under Captain John Maitland when they captured the French privateer Le General Conclaux.
On 26th February 1809, HMS Resistance, operating in company with the 18pdr armed 38 gun frigate HMS Arethusa captured La Mouche No.4 and the following day, they captured the Etienette, La Nancy and an unknown Chasse Marie. On 9th March, she captured the French privateer La Mouche No.5.
On 6th April 1810, Captain Adam was appointed to command the 74 gun third rate ship of the line HMS Invincible. Charles Adam was promoted to Rear-Admiral on 27th May 1825. He later became MP for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire, Lord Lieutenant of Kinross-shire and rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Stations. He was knighted on 10th January 1835, promoted to Vice-Admiral on 10th January 1837. He retired from active service in July 1847 and became Governor of the Greenwich Naval Hospital. He was promoted again to Admiral on 8th January 1848 and died at Greenwich on 16th September 1853. He is buried in the grounds of the Greenwich Naval Hospital, now the National Maritime Museum.
The ship's new commander, Captain Phillip Lewis J Rosenhagen wasn't able to assume command until July 1810, so in the meantime, her First Lieutenant, Mr John Hollingworth was temporarily appointed as her Master and Commander.
Under Captain Rosenhagen, HMS Resistance was reassigned to the Mediterranean. At the time, the Kingdom of Italy (then the north-eastern part of modern day Italy), the Kingdom of Naples (now the southern half of modern-day Italy) and the Illyrian Provinces (modern-day Croatia) were controlled by the French. This control gave them an advantage in moving troops to the Balkans and to Austria and also gave them control of the large shipyards in Venice. The British were determined to disrupt this and had moved frigates to the area to shut down the enemy's ability to move by sea. Captain Rosenhagen remained in command of HMS Resistance until January 1813, when he was replaced by Captain Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew. Captain Pellew was the son of the famous Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, who by now was Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, so it is perhaps not surprising that Fleetwood Pellew would be given command of a crack frigate like HMS Resistance.
Sir Edward Pellew later came to regret giving his son command of such a fine ship, with an experienced and skilled crew. In May 1813, there was a minor mutiny aboard HMS Resistance. Fleetwood Pellew was a petty tyrant who regarded everyone below him in the chain of command aboard his ship as stupid. He wasn't brutal and there are no records of excessive punishments or of problems with discipline, but the ship's company had had enough of being patronised and treated like children. On 13th May, off the island of Monte Christo, the ship's company were called forward to prepare to weigh anchor and set the sails, but instead of going about their duties, they cried "No, no". After the ship's marines had restored order, the seven ringleaders were seized and eventually brought before a Court Martial. In their defence, they stated that they regarded their captain as being little more than a boy, being aged only 23 at the time of his appointment, who had been given the appointment in HMS Resistance more because of who he was rather than because of any particular skill or experience. They were made to carry out gunnery and sail drills from the early morning into the late evening even though in their own words: "
They were an old ship's company and considered themselves to know their duty". The Articles of War however made no exceptions and four of the seven men were sentenced to be hanged from the fore yard with the other three to be given a flogging around the fleet in which they were to receive up to five hundred lashes each; to all intents and purposes, a death sentence in itself. Sir Edward Pellew however, was beginning to understand his son's weaknesses and that he had made a mistake in appointing him to HMS Resistance. He could not, however, remove his son from the ship because to do so would not only undermine Fleetwood Pellew's authority as a captain, but would undermine his own authority and position as Commander-in-Chief and would give his political enemies ammunition to use against him. Sir Edward Pellew was forced to choose between family and duty and in this instance chose his duty and responsibility to the thousands of men under his command. He appealed directly to the Prince Regent for clemency. George, Prince of Wales had been acting as Prince Regent since the previous year when his father, King George III had succumbed to what would turn to to be his final bout of madness and had been appointed to serve as Prince Regent by Parliament, with all the powers of the King. The Prince Regent knew Sir Edward Pellew well enough to know that he would not make such an extraordinary request without good reason and he duly pardoned the men.
On 5th October 1813, HMS Resistance was part of a squadron commanded by Captain George Dundas in the 74 gun third rate ship of the line HMS Edinburgh. In addition to HMS Edinburgh and HMS Resistance, the squadron also comprised the ex-French 18pdr armed 38 gun frigate HMS Imperieuse, the 32pdr carronade armed 18 gun brig-sloops HMS Eclair and HMS Swallow and the 6pdr armed 16 gun ship-sloop HMS Pylades. Incidentally, the captain of HMS Imperieuse was the son of another famous naval officer. Captain the Honourable Henry Duncan was the son of Admiral Sir Adam Duncan, the Lord Duncan of Camperdown. Captain Duncan and his ship had been watching the port of Porto D'Anzo, modern day Anzio, for a number of days because an enemy convoy of some 29 vessels had taken shelter there. The rest of Captain Dundas' force had assembled off the port on 5th October and Captain Dundas had agreed with Captain Duncan that they should mount an attack. A few days before the attack was due, Lieutenant Eaton Travers of HMS Imperieuse had led a raid using a single boats crew which had taken prisoners in order to gain intelligence about the strength of the defences and had stormed and destroyed a tower mounting a single heavy gun. The rest of the morning saw the squadron preparing for the attack and it began at 13:30. The port was defended by two shore batteries mounting a pair of heavy guns each on the mole, a further tower to the north of this with a further heavy gun and a battery to the south with two more, covering the mole. HMS Imperieuse and HMS Resistance were to bombard the batteries on the mole with HMS Swallow to bombard the tower with HMS Pylades and HMS Eclair to bombard the south battery with HMS Edinburgh in support. Lieutenant Travers led a raiding party comprising of seamen from the ships and the squadron's marines against the southern battery which was quickly stormed, with the British driving off the French soldiers in all directions. Lieutenant David Mapleton of HMS Imperieuse led a further raiding party which stormed the batteries on the mole. The vessels in the convoy were all taken by boarding parties and it was found that of the 29 vessels, 20 of them were laden with timber bound for the French naval base at Toulon. The entire raid was conducted with no losses to the British and the ships only received slight damage to their hulls and rigging from fire from the shore batteries before they were taken. Before leaving Porto D'Anzo, all the batteries and the guns in them were destroyed by the British sailors and Marines.
The Napoleonic War was finally ended by the Treaty of Fontainebleu, signed in Paris on 11th April 1814 and ratified by Napoleon Bonaparte on the 14th. The war against the Americans, which had started in July 1812 raged on until February 1815 when that was finally ended by the Treaty of Ghent. HMS Resistance was to play no part in this war and with the wars over, the ship and her crew settled down to the peacetime role of a frigate of the Royal Navy, protecting British trade interests and generally 'showing the flag'. This continued until 1816, when the ship was recalled and paid off at Plymouth in May. As a result of his son's previous behaviour, Sir Edward Pellew, by now Lord Exmouth, saw to it that his son never received another appointment in the Royal Navy. After undergoing repairs at Plymouth, HMS Resistance was laid up in the Plymouth Ordinary. While she was laying at a mooring in the Homoaze, HMS Resistance was manned by a skeleton crew comprising of senior Warrant Officers in the form of a Boatswain, a Carpenter, a Cook and a Gunner. The Boatswain, the Carpenter and the Gunner were also each allowed two servants and the Cook was allowed one, for which they received an allowance from the Admiralty of £11.8s per annum per servant (at 1815 pay rates). In addition to these men, a ship of 38 guns in the Ordinary like HMS Resistance had a crew complement of ten men, all rated at Able Seamen. In addition to these, a Purser was appointed to the ship but was allowed to live ashore within a reasonable distance of the dockyard at Plymouth. All the time he was living ashore, he was not entitled to receive an allowance for servants; he had to pay any servants from his own pocket. While the ship was in the Ordinary, these men were allowed to have their families living aboard with them. Any repairs or maintenance beyond the abilities of these men were carried out by gangs of labourers sent from the dockyard. While in the Ordinary at Plymouth, the ship came under the command of the Master Attendant at the dockyard.
HMS Resistance was in the Plymouth Ordinary for 23 years before she was taken into the Dockyard and converted into a troopship in November 1841. In March 1842, the work was complete and the ship was re-rated as a troopship of ten guns. She remained in this role, taking soldiers and their families to and from the far corners of the British Empire until September 1856 when she was laid up at Chatham.
In April 1858, HMS Resistance was taken into the Royal Dockyard at Chatham and was broken up. She had served her country well for fifty-three years. During the lifetime of the ship, the Industial Revolution, which had been well underway when she had been built at Charles Ross' Rochester shipyard, had totally transformed the nation. Even when the ship had been built, steam power had enabled the mass-production of everything from the wooden trenails and iron nails which held her together and the canvas fabric which made up her sails to the great guns she carried. By the time she was broken up, steam was replacing sail as the primary means of propelling ships, iron was replacing wood in their construction, the railway network was spreading all over the country, making the mass transit of goods and people possible and the population had moved from the countryside into the new large industrial towns. Although these things brought their own problems, modern Britain had been born.
