Joseph Baker (Royal Navy Officer) - Baltic Service

Baltic Service

Baker was recalled to service and, in 1808, made post captain. On 3 November 1808, he was captain of Tartar, which was escorting a convoy off the Naze of Norway. She sighted a sloop and gave chase. After a chase of three hours, Tartar captured the sloop, which turned out to be the Danish privateer Naargske Gutten, of seven 6 and 4-pounders and 36 men. She was quite new and only one day out from Christiansand.

On 15 May 1809, Baker and Tartar chased a Danish privateer sloop on shore near Felixberg on the coast of Courland. She was armed with two 12-pounders and two long 4-pounders and carried a crew of 24. These, armed with muskets, took up positions behind the sandhills where some local civilians joined them. Baker sent in his boats. The British cutting out party boarded her, without loss, and turned the privateer's guns on the beach. One of the prize crew was lucky to discover a lighted candle set in a powder cartridge in the magazine and extinguished it when it had only a half an inch to burn. The magazine contained about a hundredweight of powder; had it exploded it would have killed boarding party. Baker considered this artifice a dishonourable mode of warfare. The prize crew brought the sloop off.

At the beginning of March 1811 Vice Admiral Sir James Saumarez received information that the Danes would attack the island of Anholt, on which there was a garrison of British forces under Capt. Maurice of the Royal Navy. Tartar sailed from Yarmouth on the 20th and anchored off the north end of the island on the 26th. On 27 March the garrison sighted the enemy off the south side of the island. Maurice marched to meet them with a battery of howitzers and 200 infantry, and signaled Tartar and Sheldrake. The two vessels immediately weighed and, under a heavy press of sail made every endeavour to beat south but the shoals forced them to stand so far out that it took them many hours.

The Danes, who had eighteen heavy gunboats for support, landed some 1000 troops in the darkness and fog and attempted to outflank the British positions. Their attack was uncoordinated and poorly equipped. However the batteries at Fort Yorke (the British base) and Massareenes stopped the assault. Gunfire from Tartar and Sheldrake forced the gunboats to move off westwards. The gunboats made their escape over the reefs while the ships had to beat round the outside. Tartar chased three gunboats towards Læsø but found herself in shoal water as night approached and gave up the chase. On the way back Tartar captured two Danish transports that it had passed while chasing the gunboats; one of them had 22 soldiers on board, with a considerable quantity of ammunition, shells and the like, while the other contained provisions.

Sheldrake managed to capture two gunboats. The Danes on the western side managed to embark on board fourteen gunboats and make their escape. The Battle of Anholt cost the British only two killed and 30 wounded. The Danes lost their commander, three other officers, and 50 men killed. The British took, besides the wounded, five captains, nine lieutenants, and 504 rank and file as prisoners, as well as three pieces of artillery, 500 muskets, and 6,000 rounds of ammunition. In addition, Sheldrake's two captured gunboats resulted in another two Lieutenants of the Danish Navy, and 119 men falling prisoner.

Tartar grounded on 18 August 1811 on Dagö Island off the coast of Estonia and sprang a leak. Her crew refloated but she continued to fill with water. She was run ashore on 21 August at Kahar Islet, midway between Dagö Island and the Isle of Worms, and later burnt. Ethalion rescued all her crew, who then were re-assigned to other ships on the Baltic station. A court martial on 23 October honorably acquitted Captain Baker, his officers and crew.