Qualla: HMS Acheron (1803) https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803 en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:38:46 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: HMS Acheron (1803) https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803 HMS Acheron (1803): Introduction https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803/ Photo credit Francis Sartorius II, Public domain. The Royal Navy liked to give its bomb-vessels the names of hell. These were squat, heavily built ships that hurled explosive shells from great mortars, and their crews sailed under labels like Vesuvius, Aetna, and Terror. Acheron took her name from the river of woe that the ancient Greeks placed at the edge of the underworld. She had not been born to it. She began life as a merchant ship in the Jamaica sugar trade, and she ended it as a burning wreck off the southeastern coast of Spain, sacrificed with a sister ship to buy a convoy of civilians their escape.

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Image: Francis Sartorius II | Public domain

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/eyxm-hms-acheron-1803-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full HMS Acheron (1803): From Jamaica Trader to Bomb Vessel https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803/ Photo credit Francis Sartorius II, Public domain. She was launched at Whitby in 1799 under the plain name New Grove and spent her first years hauling cargo between London and Jamaica, later carrying goods to Suriname under a master named Barclay. It was ordinary commercial work, the backbone of an empire that ran on ships like h...

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Image: Francis Sartorius II | Public domain

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/eyxm-hms-acheron-1803-from-jamaica-trader-to-bomb-vessel.mp3 0:06 2 full HMS Acheron (1803): The Long Watch off Toulon https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803/ Photo credit Francis Sartorius II, Public domain. By July 1804 Acheron was one of the ships bottling up the French in Toulon, a monotonous, weather-beaten duty that Nelson's captains knew intimately. Early that August a storm blew the British squadron off station, and the French admiral Latouche Treville seized the gap to take h...

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Image: Francis Sartorius II | Public domain

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/eyxm-hms-acheron-1803-the-long-watch-off-toulon.mp3 0:06 3 full HMS Acheron (1803): The Convoy and the Two Frigates https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803/ Photo credit Francis Sartorius II, Public domain. In January 1805 Acheron was ordered to a different task: shepherding merchant ships home. Alongside the sloop Arrow, under Captain Richard Budd Vincent, she escorted a convoy of nearly thirty merchantmen out of Malta toward England. Bad weather off Spain scattered the ships into ...

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Image: Francis Sartorius II | Public domain

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/eyxm-hms-acheron-1803-the-convoy-and-the-two-frigates.mp3 0:06 4 full HMS Acheron (1803): Burned, but Not for Nothing https://qualla.com/hms-acheron-1803/ Photo credit Francis Sartorius II, Public domain. The two small ships had done exactly what escorts are meant to do. While the frigates were occupied, the great majority of the convoy slipped away; the French managed to seize only three vessels, which they scuttled. Farquhar and his men were carried into Malaga and exchanged bef...

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Image: Francis Sartorius II | Public domain

]]> Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/e/y/x/m/hms-acheron-1803-wp/eyxm-hms-acheron-1803-burned-but-not-for-nothing.mp3 0:06 5 full