HMS Mutine under the command of Lieutnant Hardy (later Captain of the Victory at the Battle of the Trafalgar) won lasting fame for bringing news of Nelson's great victory at the Battle of the Nile. In 1842 Mutine was sold and sailed halfway around the world to Tasmania, Australia, where she became a goverment powder hulk and was moored in the harbour at Hobart until 1902. In tribute to her illustrious past Tasmanian officials respectfully decked her out with festive flags each year on the anniversary of the battle.
However, in the Royal Navy only one ship carries a particular name at one point in time and when a vessel is lost, or sold out of service, the name is freed to be used by another. The Mutine in the Antipodes had not been at the Nile; she was in fact two namesake down the line. The mutine who brought the news of Nelson's victory was sold in 1803.
When the British frigates Minerve and Lively looked into the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 28th May, 1797, they were hoping to find a Spanish treasure ship rumoured to be cruising in the area. They were disappointed on the treasure front, but they did see one new arrival to the harbour: the French corvette La Mutine, a fine, fast-sailing brig of fourteen guns. She wasn't a treasure ship, but determined not to leave empty-handed, Captains Cockburn and Hallowell decided to make a prize of her.
The next day, boats from both ships were put together for the purpose of cutting the Mutine out of the harbour. The senior officer in the boats was Lieutenant Thomas Hardy of the Minerve, so the command of the mission fell to him.
Most cutting-out expeditions were ideally conducted under the cover of night, but for reasons unknown, the officers of Minerve and Lively decided to attack in the middle of the afternoon, and so about 2.30pm, the British boats entered the roads and made straight for the Mutine where she lay at anchor. Astonishingly, they weren't spotted by any of the other ships in the harbour, and it was only as they drew close to their target that the alarm went up aboard the Mutine. Her people sprang into action, and Hardy's party had to endure a hail of musket-fire before they could close the distance and board her. But their attack was, in Captain Hallowell's words, "most resolute", and they succeeded in carrying her after just a short struggle. It may be that the crew of the Mutine, who had just put into Santa Cruz to take in water, were taken completely by surprise: her captain, Xavier Pommier, was ashore at the time of her capture. Probably the last thing he expected was a British cutting-out party in the middle of the day.
Mutine was now in British hands, but this was only the start for Hardy and his crew, for now they had to get her out of the harbour. The fighting on the brig had been noticed, by other ships, and by the people in the town, and when she suddenly hoisted British colours, the alarm spread. And to complicate matters even further, there was hardly any wind for them to make sail.
The only thing to do was get the brig under weigh, and tow her out of the harbour: a slow, laborious process at the best of times, made even more excruciating by the fact that they were now under heavy fire from all sides: from the garrison, and from another large ship in the road. For about an hour Hardy and his crew were exposed as they worked their way out of the harbour, until, just before 4pm, they succeeded in getting her beyond the range of the batteries to rejoin Minerve and Lively.
Most remarkable about the whole thing, despite the fact that they had been under fire from the moment they'd first been spotted, the cutting-out party came away without losing a single man. The butcher's bill listed just fifteen wounded, including Lieutenant Hardy. The nature of his wound isn't recorded by Captain Hallowell, but in letters to family, Hardy makes a wry remark about a wound to the head, so that might be it.
Cockburn and Hallowell were unanimous in their praise for the skill and speed with which Hardy had led the expedition, and that very day, Hallowell wrote out his order to take command of the new prize. The captains also wrote to Lord St. Vincent, appealing to him to have Hardy's promotion confirmed. Another voice was, naturally, that of Rear-Admiral Nelson, who had come to appreciate Hardy's courage just a few months before. (Hardy definitely had better luck in Santa Cruz than Nelson ever did: just two months later, in July, Nelson launched the disastrous attack on the harbour that ended up costing him his right arm.)
For his own part, Old Jarvie had nothing but appreciation for Hardy's achievement as well. Writing in reply to Nelson in June, he said, "The capture of La Mutine was so desperate an enterprise, that I should certainly have promoted Lieutenant Hardy [...] He has got it by his own bat, and I hope will prosper." In June, he took Mutine into the British service as HMS Mutine, and confirmed Hardy's promotion to master and commander.
Hardy commanded Mutine in the Mediterranean for over a year. During the summer of 1798, he was mostly employed in searching for intelligence on the whereabouts of the French fleet, and was able to provide Nelson with vital information that led to the discovery of the fleet in Aboukir Bay in Egypt. Mutine also played a supporting role in the Battle of the Nile, coming to the aid of HMS Culloden when she ran aground. When Hardy was promoted to the captaincy of Nelson's flagship Vanguard following the battle, command of Mutine passed to Thomas Bladen Capel, and from him to William Hoste. She remained in the Royal Navy until she was sold in 1803.
God bless digitised sources:
HMS Mutine (1797) at Wikipedia (I know, I know, but it covers all the main points.)
"Cutting out the Mutine", Naval History of Great Britain, Volume II, William James
Captain Benjamin Hallowell's letter to Earl St. Vincent on the action, quoted in The Britannic Magazine, Vol. 5
Excerpt from Nelson's Hardy and his Wife, John Gore
The Three Dorset Captains at Trafalgar, A.M. Broadley and R.G. Bartelot
The Life and Services of Horatio Viscount Nelson, James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur
