HMS Somerset (1748)

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The third HMS Somerset was built at Chatham in 1748 and saw action at the capture of Louisberg and Cape Bretton Island during the Seven Years War. She was also part of the fleet that landed General Woolfe and his troops at Quebec. In 1758 a British expedition under General Jeffrey Amherst besieged the fortress at Louisberg, beginning on June 8. The British had 39 ships with about 14,000 sailors, and a further landing force of 12,870 soldiers. The fortress was defended by 10 French ships with 3,870 sailors, and another 3,920 soldiers inside the fortress itself. The 48-day siege by Admiral Edward Boscawen and General Amherst ended with the French surrender on July 26, clearing the way for a British expedition to take Nouvelle France at Quebec the following summer. That expedition, led by General James Wolfe who had been a colonel during the Louisbourg expedition, was landed by a force that included HMS Somerset. The British were victorious at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759 giving Britain control of the entire Atlantic seaboard.

HMS Somerset then went on to play a well documented part in the American Revolutionary War, where she served from 1774 to 1776 and again from 1777 to her loss in 1778. History might have been changed on the night of 18 April 1775 had the duty watch of HMS Somerset been more alert. Paul Revere set out that night to ride to Lexington to warn two prominent Colonial leaders, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, that their lives might be in danger. Having departed Boston by boat across the Back Bay, he narrowly avoided being noticed by HMS Somerset which was anchored there. His exploits led to HMS Somerset’s immortalisation in Henry Longfellow’s poem Paul Revere’s Ride:

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide.

Somerset was the backdrop to another brief but important incident during the war. On the night of Saturday, 27 May 1775, HM Armed Schooner Diana, under the Command of Lieutenant Thomas Graves (cousin of Admiral Thomas Graves who would command at Chesapeake in 1781), ran aground while attempting to keep Americans from driving livestock from Noodle's Island in Boston Harbour, at which point the American rebels set fire to the ship. HMS Somerset's tender, Britannia (under Command of his brother Lieutenant John Graves), was able to rescue the Diana's company. Lt Thomas Graves went on to serve under Lord Rodney at the Saintes and as Nelson’s second-in-command at Copenhagen, eventually becoming Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves. He was permanently scared by the burns he received at Noodle’s Island.

Shortly after those events, HMS Somerset served as the flagship of Admiral Samuel Graves (Lt Thomas Graves’ uncle!) at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Boston, under British control since 1768, was under siege by 8,000 to 12,000 militia occupying the strategically important Dorchester Heights. On the night of 16 June 1775 the militia forces began to fortify Bunker Hill to prevent any British attempt to take the position. At dawn, HMS Lively was first to spot the new fortification and the ship opened fire, temporarily halting the Americans' work. Admiral Graves, in HMS Somerset, awoke to the sound of gunfire he hadn't ordered. He ordered it stopped, only to reverse his order when he saw the works. He ordered all 128 guns in the harbor to open fire on the American position. The broadsides proved largely ineffective, since the ships couldn't elevate their guns enough to reach the hilltop. The position was eventually taken by British troops, ferried across the bay under protection of the navy’s guns, but at considerable cost.

HMS Somerset’s luck ran out at the end of 1778. She was battered by gales in August and ran aground in another gale on 2 November 1778, whilst pursuing a French Squadron, on Peaked Hill Bars off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 20 of her crew drowned while many were rescued by locals. Her wreckage was uncovered briefly by storms in 1973 and can still be seen at exceptionally low waters at Dead Man's Hollow, near Provincetown. See: http://www.provincetowngov.org/historic/timeline/timelink/1778somerset.htm

The third HMS Somerset is the subject of a book (HMS Somerset, 1746-1778. The Life and Times of an Eighteenth Century British Man-o-War and Her Impact on North America, Marjorie Hubbell Gibson, Abbey House, 1992), sadly out of print. She is also remembered by a historical re-enactment society in Boston, His Majesty’s Ship Somerset