Mediterranean
In July 1799 Captain Sir James Nicoll Morris took command of Phaeton and sailed with Lord Elgin, of the eponymous Elgin Marbles, for Constantinople. Elgin would be Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire until 1803. In May 1800 she participated in the blockade of Genoa as part of Lord Keith's squadron. The Austrian general besieging the city, Baron d'Ott, particularly appreciated her fire in support of the Austrian army.
On 25 October 1800 Phaeton chased a Spanish polacca to an anchorage under a battery of five heavy guns at Fuengirola, where she joined a French privateer brig. The following night the brig escaped while the polacca tried twice, unsuccessfully, to escape to Malaga. On the night of the 27 October, Francis Beaufort led Phaeton's boats on a cutting out expedition. Unfortunately the launch, with a carronade, was unable to keep up and was still out of range when a French privateer schooner, which had come into the anchorage unseen, fired on the other boats. The barge and two cutters immediately made straight for the polacca and succeeded in securing her by 5 am. The captured ship was the San Josef, alias Aglies, of two 24-pounder iron guns, two brass 18-pounder guns as stern chasers, four brass 12-pounder guns and six 6-pounder guns. She was a packet, carrying provisions between Malaga and Velilla. She had a crew of 49 seamen, though 15 were away, and there were also 22 soldiers on board to act as marines.
The boarding party suffered one man killed and three wounded, including Beaufort who received, but survived, 19 wounds. The Spanish sustained at least 13 wounded.
Once Morris was sure that his men had secured the prize he sailed Phaeton in pursuit of a second pollaca that had passed earlier, sailing from Ceuta to Malaga. Phaeton was able to catch her under a battery at Cape Molleno. While Phaeton was returning to pick up Beaufort, his men and their prize, the French privateer schooner sailed past, too far away for Phaeton to intercept.
The British immediately commissioned San Josef as a British sloop-of-war under the name Calpe, the ancient name for Gibraltar. Although it would have been usual to promote Beaufort, the successful and heroic leader of the expedition, to command Calpe, Lord Keith chose instead George Dundas who not only was not present at the battle, but was junior to Beaufort. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the survivors to that date of the boarding party the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "27 Oct. Boat Service 1800".
On 16 May 1801, boats from Phaeton and Naiad under the direction of Naiad's first lieutenant, entered the port of Marín, Pontevedra, in Galicia in north west Spain. There they captured the Spanish corvette Alcudia and destroyed the armed packet Raposo, both under the protection of a battery of five 24-pounders. Alcudia, commanded by Don Jean Antonio Barbuto, was moored stem and stern close to the fort. Her sails had previously been taken ashore so the boats had to tow her out but soon after a strong south-west wind set in and it was necessary to set her on fire. Only four men from the two British ships were wounded.
Phaeton then returned to Britain and was paid off in March 1802.
Read more about this topic: HMS Phaeton (1782)