Autographed operational order by Sir William Hotham Battle of Camperdown 1797
HOTHAM, Sir William (1772–1848). Autograph letter signed as Captain of H.M.S. Adamant, to Mr Sam Lewis, Agent Victualler at Yarmouth.
The Nore Mutiny / Battle of Camperdown
Onboard H.M.S. Adamant, 1 September 1797.
Folio (325 × 205 mm). 1 page, neatly written, signed at foot by Sir William Hotham. Docketed verso “Yarmouth / 1 Sept 1797 / Adamant.” Old folds with short splits in places, a few small stains, otherwise very good and legible.
An operational order written aboard H.M.S. Adamant during the tense months between the Nore Mutiny and the Battle of Camperdown, when the Royal Navy’s loyalty and effectiveness hung in the balance.
Hotham directs Sam Lewis, the Navy’s local victualling agent at Yarmouth, to send off “with all possible dispatch Lighters sufficient to take on shore a large quantity of casks, packs, hoops etc. which prevents H.M. Ship Adamant from receiving any water on board until they are removed,” authorising the transfer “for which this shall be your warrant.”
The instruction, briskly functional as it reads, comes from a fleet in crisis and recovery. Only three months earlier the Nore Mutiny (May–June 1797) had paralysed the North Sea Squadron, with over twenty ships joining the revolt and blockading the Thames in one of the most dangerous challenges to naval discipline ever faced. Admiral Adam Duncan, commanding the North Sea Fleet, was left with only two ships that remained steadfastly loyal — H.M.S. Venerable and H.M.S. Adamant under Captain William Hotham. With these two vessels alone, he bluffed the Dutch fleet at the Texel into believing the blockade still held, maintaining the illusion of strength by signalling to imaginary squadrons.
By the time this letter was written (1 September 1797), the mutiny had been suppressed, and Duncan’s reconstituted fleet was re-arming and refitting at Yarmouth and the Downs. The Adamant’s stores, casks and water barrels being moved ashore here were part of that logistical renewal — a return to order and readiness that culminated six weeks later in Duncan’s victory at the Battle of Camperdown (11 October 1797). In that action the Adamant again formed part of the loyal line that engaged and defeated the Batavian Republic’s fleet under Admiral de Winter, destroying half the enemy ships and restoring the prestige of a Navy shaken by rebellion.
A small administrative note about the resupplying of H.M.S. Adamant but contextually situated within one of the Royal Navy’s most testing moments in history.