[64-gun ship of the line]
The first Miller that we have certain information about is Thomas Miller senior. He is believed to have come from the vicinity of Ringwood on the Hampshire/Dorset border and was probably born in the early 1760s. Our first record of him is when he joined Repulse, a 64-gun ship of the line, commanded by Captain Digby Dent. The Muster List shows that he joined the ship in Portsmouth on the 21st December 1780 and that he was a Midshipman.
During the following year the ship spent most of its time off the SW of Ireland and in the SW Approaches. In early 1782 Repulse sailed for the West Indies and in April of that year took part, under the command of Admiral Rodney, in the Battle of the Saintes, an action that went a long way to restoring Britain's maritime power in the West Indies after the disasters of the American War of Independence.
In 1783 Repulse returned to England and paid off.
[Guardships]
At the beginning of 1784 Thomas joined Hector, which acted as a guardship in Portsmouth until she paid off in January 1787. We have an amusing extract from the recollections of Comd James Anthony Gardner which tells us a little about Thomas. From May 1789 until Jan 1790 he served in Edgar, also a guardship at Portsmouth. In both these ships his rate was shown as Midshipman.
During this period of peace he married Ann Gould at Alverstoke on the 5th June 1785. Ann, who was a minor, had been born on the 7 July 1767 at Horton, near Ringwood. He had to obtain the permission of her mother Mary, to marry her. On his marriage certificate he described himself as 'of HMS Hector, Gent'. 21.' [This may have been his correct age, but is more likely to mean that he was over the age of 21.] Three children were born in rapid succession. John Francis in March 1786, Thomas in 1788 and Mary Ann, wife of James Hall, in February 1789. Both sons subsequently joined the Navy. There may have been a fourth son who also joined the Navy.
In October 1792 he passed his examination for Gunner. His certificate for this rank gives one an interesting insight of the professional and mental skills required of a Gunner.
[32-gun frigate]
In February 1793 the Revolutionary Wars with France started and 6 months later Thomas was appointed Gunner of the frigate Astrea. After a short period off the East Coast of Scotland he spent most of 1794 escorting convoys in the Channel, SW Approaches and the Irish Sea.
In 1795 having spent March at Spithead, where Thomas's eldest son, John Francis, joined the ship, Astrea joined the fleet off the Ushant. On the 11th April, some 150 miles W of the Scilly Isles, she chased and captured the French frigate La Gloire, 42-gun. The first shot was fired at 6.30 pm, the main action started at 10.30 pm and the enemy struck an hour later, having suffered 40 killed and wounded. Astrea had 8 wounded.
After two months at Spithead the Astrea returned to her station off Brest and on the 23rd June took part in Lord Bridport's (Alexander Hood) action off Isle de Groix, near Lorient, in which three French ships of the line were captured. Astrea embarked some of the prisoners and after taking them back to England, spent July off Belle-Ile and Isle de Groix. In October she proceeded to Sheerness, where his son left the ship. The last few months of 1795 where spent in the North Sea and at anchor off Gluckstad in the mouth of the Elbe
In February 1796 Astrea sailed for the West Indies where she took part in the capture of St Lucia and Granada. Her Captain played an active part in the capture of the former island, where he led a mixed party of soldiers and marines ashore. The military commander of these operations was General Abercrombie whom Thomas would meet later in his career when his ship took part in the landing at Aboukir Bay in March 1801.
While at St Lucia, on the instructions of the naval commander, Admiral Christian, Thomas was appointed Gunner of the Minotaur, the previous incumbent of the post having died. This was an important promotion. He was now the gunner of a 74-gun ship of the line.
[64-gun ship of the line]
The following April his ship took part in the Mutiny at Spithead, which was finally amicably settled by Admiral Lord Howe on May 15th. [PAGE1513] and [PAGE1514]. Two days later the Fleet sailed.
After spending June in the Channel, Minotaur arrived off Cadiz and joined the force which, under the command of Admiral Lord St Vincent, was blockading the Spanish Fleet in that port. A fortnight after her arrival Admiral Nelson, Admiral Lord St Vincent's second in command, lost his arm during the unsuccessful attack on Teneriffe.
Minotaur spent the next nine months on the Cadiz station, some of the time in the Tagus and at other times anchored or cruising off Cadiz.
On the 24th May Minotaur, in company with nine other ships of the line, entered the Mediterranean to reinforce Admiral Nelson's small squadron which was watching the French fleet in Toulon, where it was known that an expeditionary force was being assembled by Napoleon.
For the next two months Minotaur was in company with Nelson's flagship Vanguard. Because of the exceptional historic interest of subsequent events, which led to The Battle of the Nile, they are described in more detail separately [PAGE1515] and only a broad outline of the fleet's movements are given here.
Due to a severe storm Napoleon and his expeditionary force had managed to leave Toulon undetected on the 19th May. Having repaired the damage suffered in the storm and been joined by the force from Cadiz, Nelson spent the next two and a half months trying to discover where Napoleon had gone to. His search took him through the Tyrrhenian Sea, W of Corsica and Sardinia, twice round the East Mediterranean basin and twice to the port of Alexandria. Here on the morning of 1st August Nelson found the French fleet, which that evening was almost completely destroyed in Aboukir Bay at what is known by the British as the Battle of the Nile [PAGE1515].
After the battle Minotaur formed part of the force commanded by Nelson in the Central Mediterranean which was based at Naples, one of the two capitals of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In October she joined the naval forces that were taking part in the blockade of Malta, which had been captured by the French on their way to Egypt and in November she took part in the capture of Leghorn, a success, the benefits of which were reversed by the subsequent defeat in December of the Neapolitan army by the French.
Faced with a French occupation of Naples the King and Queen had moved to their other capital, Palermo. They and the Hamilton's, had been taken there by Nelson in his flagship Vanguard. Unable to use Naples Minotaur continued to operate in the Tyrrhenian Sea, using Palermo as her base.
In February the Austrians had entered the war against France and this threat combined with a successful rising in S. Italy led to the Neapolitans regaining control of their city. In June the British fleet returned to Naples and Minotaur remained there for the summer, although the Royal family and Nelson remained at Palermo. In the autumn she took part in a successful operation which resulted in the capture of Civita Vecchia, the port of Rome and joined the force blockading Malta. In December she left the Central Mediterranean and based on Port Mahon, Minorca, joined the force that was blockading Toulon.
In the early part of the year Minotaur operated in the Gulf of Lyons and during the spring and early summer the fleet operated in support of the Austrians in northern Italy. In May Thomas was sent ashore in Genoa to repair some of the guns that had been 'spiked' by the retreating French. For part of this time she was the flagship of Admiral Keith who had lost the Queen Charlotte in March from fire. This disaster, in which 690 men died, started in a bale of hay and caused more than three times as many British deaths as the Battle of the Nile.
In December, after a short visit to the island of Malta, which had been captured from the French in September, Minotaur joined the Anglo-Turkish force that was assembling near Rhodes for the invasion of Egypt.
The reason for this deployment needs a brief explanation. After the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, Napoleon decided to invade the Turkish province of Syria and in February 1799 his army set out along the N side of the Sinai peninsular, After initial successes he over extended himself and by June his army was back in Egypt with over a third of his force dead, wounded or sick. One reason for this defeat was the determined defence of Acre by a joint Turkish - British force. The British component was led by Sir Sydney Smith, a naval Captain, who had been given semi-independent political and naval command of the area. His brother was the British Ambassador in Constantinople.
After defeating an Anglo-Turkish attempt to land Turkish troops in Aboukir Bay, Napoleon decided that it was his duty that he should desert his army and return to France. On the 22nd August he embarked on a frigate, and after an eventful journey, arrived in France on the 7th October 1799.
Nelson's victory had left the French army stranded in Egypt. A half hearted attempt was made to rescue them and Sir Sydney Smith tried to negotiate their evacuation. For various reasons both attempts failed. At the end of 1800 the British government decided to send an expedition to defeat them. It was this expedition that Minotaur had joined.
On the 1st March 5500 British soldiers went ashore in the first wave. They were carried in 58 flat bottomed boats towed by ship's boats. They were opposed by 2000 French troops. A bridgehead was established and the second and third waves followed and the French army was subsequently defeated at the Battle of Lake Mareotis. Sadly General Abercrombie was fatally wounded thereby ending a career which might have made him one of Britain's most famous generals. Cairo was captured on 28th June and the French army surrendered, only to be returned to France under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens.
Minotaur remained at Alexandria until September. After visiting Malta in October she spent November in the W. Mediterranean, during which time she executed a very neat operation at Barcelona in which she captured two Spanish frigates. She left the Mediterranean on 6th December and arrived at Spithead on the 21st. Minotaur and her crew had been away from England for 4 years 7 months and 4 days.
DEATH OF THOMAS MILLER
Minotaur anchored at Spithead on Wednesday 23rd December 1801. Because of the weather conditions the ship shifted berth on Christmas Day to obtain more shelter from the Isle of Wight. On Monday 28th Thomas Miller died and the next day his body was committed to the Deep.
This sad event raises a number of questions. As far as we know Mrs Miller was living in Gosport while her husband was away. Did she see her husband before he died? Did she attend his funeral? There is one further twist to this sad story, which has only recently come to light. Mrs Miller was not only expecting to be reunited with her husband. She was also looking forward to seeing her eldest son again after a period of 4 years. John Francis Miller had joined the Minotaur, at the age of 12, in May 1797.
There is of course one further question that might be asked. Perhaps Mrs Miller had not been living in Gosport? Had she been with her husband and son for the last 4½ years? Had she been with them at the Battle of the Nile? (See note below).
On 26 May 1802 Mrs Miller received two payments from the Navy for the sums of £197 19s 6d and £121 9s 10d. Their combined value in modern terms (2006) would have been about £20 000. One must hope that these payments helped make her widowhood more bearable. Perhaps she married again. She was still only 34.
NOTE: The suggestion that Mrs Miller was on board the Minotaur is not as far fetched as it may seem. As will be seen from the following extract taken from the Diary of John Nicol (pp 193-4) whose Action Station was in the powder Magazine of Goliath, a number of women were present at the Battle of the Nile.
'Any information we got was from the boys and the women who carried the powder. The women behaved as well as the men. I was much indebted to the Gunner's wife who gave her husband and me a drink of wine every now and then. Some of the women were wounded, and one woman belonging to Leith died of her wounds. One woman bore a son in the heat of the action: she belonged to Edinburgh.'
It may also be relevant that there is no record of Thomas instructing the Admiralty to pay an allowance to his wife, which many of his colleagues had done.