1787-1801
Thomas Miller was the second son of Thomas Miller and younger brother of John Francis Miller.
He was born in 1787. We know nothing about his childhood except that he was probably brought up in Gosport.
Our first record of his naval career is when he was entered on the books of Minotaur on the 17th January 1802 as a Volunteer 1st Class. This act was very much a case of the Navy looking after its own. His father had died on board three weeks earlier and his brother John Francis was still serving on the ship. At the end of January the two brothers sailed for Sheerness where the Minotaur was paid off.
After a month on board Zealand, to which ship Thomas had been entered on the orders of Vice Admiral Graeme, Commander-in-Chief the Nore, he joined Dreadnought in which he served for the next four years.
[96 guns -ship of the line]
OFF BREST AND CADIZ
With the ending of the Peace of Amiens in May 1803, Dreadnought joined the fleet, under the command of Admiral Cornwallis, that was blockading the port of Brest and the other French Atlantic ports. For the next two years Dreadnought was almost continuously at sea, with the occasional break in Torbay or Cawsand Bay when the weather off the Ushant made it possible to relax the blockade.
Cornwallis had as his second in command Admiral Collingwood who commanded a detached squadron. In September 1804 he hoisted his flag in Dreadnought.
In April 1805, in order to consolidate a new alliance with the Russians, the British government, had agreed to send a small military force to the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, due to a domestic political crisis during which Lord Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had resigned, no one remembered to tell the Admirals concerned, namely Nelson in the Mediterranean and Orde at Gibraltar. At that stage the Admiralty did not know that Nelson was about to pursue Villeneuve across the Atlantic.
To correct this oversight Pitt and Barham, who had been First Lord for a day or two, ordered Collingwood to take fourteen ships of the line from the Channel Fleet to Cadiz. They sailed from Cawsand Bay on the 21st May. After further excitements, including taking refuge in Lisbon, the convoy arrived safely at Malta in July, while Collingwood took up his blockade of Cadiz.
BEFORE THE BATTLE
Events leading to the Battle of Trafalgar and how Villeneuve finally ended up in Cadiz on the 20th August have been described earlier [PAGE1522]. It only remains to mention briefly the skill with which Collingwood continued to blockade the combined fleet. When Villeneuve arrived at Cadiz Collingwood had only had three ships of the line and one frigate with him. Yet as soon as the French ships had entered harbour he continued to act as if he had a force at his disposal that was quite adequate to deal with the fleet of 33 ships of the line that Villeneuve had under his command. He continued this bluff until sufficient reinforcements had arrived that made his blockade a reality. The most important of these was Calder's squadron of 18 ships that joined him on the 28th from Brest.
When Nelson joined the fleet a month later he brought with him instructions that Admiral Calder should return home to face a court martial for his poor performance against Villeneuve in the battle off Cape Finisterre on the 22nd July. The Admiralty also instructed that Calder should return home in Dreadnought who was in need of a refit and whose fouled bottom made her one of the slowest ships in the fleet. Calder appealed to Nelson that he should be allowed to return to England in his own Flagship, the Prince of Wales. Surprisingly and generously Nelson agreed to this request. His sympathy for Calder, seems to have overcome the need to have the more manoeuvrable vessel available for any forthcoming battle. Calder sailed for England on the 14th October.
These arrangements reduced the need for Collingwood to find another flagship, but Nelson insisted that he moved to the Royal Sovereign, which was faster vessel with a newly coppered bottom. It has been reported that Collingwood was not happy with this decision as he was particularly proud of the fact that the Dreadnought was said to be capable of the highest rate of fire in the fleet, being able to fire three broadsides in three and half minutes. However it is difficult to understand how Collingwood could have expected to lead the leeward column into battle in the slowest ship in the fleet. In fact when the final order of battle was decided Dreadnought was placed at the rear of Collingwood's division so that she would not delay ships astern of her. As we will see, this position did not prevent her from playing an active part in the battle.
THE BATTLE
At first light on the 21st October the British sighted the Combined Fleet sailing on a southerly course about ten miles to the ESE. At about 8 am Villeneuve decided to return to Cadiz and ordered his fleet to reverse course, a manoeuvre which took two hours to complete and even then left his fleet in a state of considerable confusion.
In the meantime the British fleet formed into two columns and proceeded slowly, at speeds of between one and a half and three knots, towards the enemy. Even the British columns were not in perfect line ahead, particularly at the rear of Collingwood's column, where the Dreadnought was lying to the north of the line. At 9 am the enemy was five miles distant from Victory and 11 am the gap had closed to 3 miles, with Royal Sovereign perhaps slightly closer.
At 11.50 the first shot of the battle came from the French ship Fougueux, when she fired a broadside from 1000 yards at Royal Sovereign. The British withheld their fire until they were much closer and the first shots were fired by Royal Sovereign as she passed through the enemy line, followed three minutes later by Belleisle.
For the next hour and a half a series of fierce duels with the contestants at very close quarters, or even alongside each other, were fought by the leading ships of Collingwood's column and the leading ships of what was now the rear division of the Combined fleet. Through superior gun drill and seamanship the British ship came off best in these duels, but they only did so at great cost. The ferocity of the fighting during this phase of the battle can be judged by the fact that more than a third of the deaths suffered by Collingwood's column were in the first three ships of the line [PAGE1532].
Because of her position at the rear of the column Dreadnought was not in a position to engage the enemy until about 2 pm. when she was able to close the Spanish 74, San Juan de Nepomuceno. This ship, which originally had been at the head of the Combined fleet line was no match for the highly trained gun crews of Dreadnought and was soon a dismasted wreck with 250 of her crew, including her Captain and second-in-command, killed or wounded. After a short fight, lasting about 15 minutes, she surrendered and a prize crew was put on board.
For the remaining two hours of the battle Dreadnought took an active part in the series of actions that were taking place. In the final stages she formed part of a group of relatively undamaged ships that Collingwood ordered to intercept the van of the Combined fleet, under Dumanoir. This group had finally reversed course and was coming to the support of the defeated centre and rear sections of the Combined fleet. It is likely that the approach of the Dreadnought group was one of the factors that made Dumanoir change his mind and, and with three other ships, leave the scene of battle.
When the battle was over Dreadnought had suffered 33 casualties, 7 killed and 26 wounded.
We have no record of the part that Thomas played during this battle, however we do have a record of the action stations of junior officers [PAGE1531] in another 3 decker which gives one some idea of what his duties may have been. Like his brother he earned £10 14s 2d in Prize Money and a Parliamentary Grant of £26 6s 0d.
AFTER THE BATTLE
As the reader will have learnt when they read of the adventures of Thomas junior's elder brother John Francis in Phoebe, the week after the battle was dominated by the great storm and the British fleet's attempts to secure its own safety and that of its prizes.
In the late afternoon after the battle Dreadnought removed 160 of the crew from the San Juan and left the prize crew to fend for itself during night. The next day, Tuesday, Dreadnought, reinforced the prize crew aboard Monarca with a party of one midshipman and eleven seaman. They were joined by a similar party from Phoebe. The San Juan continued to drift north towards Cadiz, despite an attempt by the frigate Melpomene to take her in tow.
On Wednesday Dreadnought and four other ships of the line were sent north to challenge the French and Spanish ships that appeared to be coming out of harbour to fight. However this proved to be a false threat. The aim of their sorties was to rescue some of the prizes that were drifting up the coast. Instead of having to fight the enemy Dreadnought, assisted by Phoebe were able to resecure the French ship Swiftsure and the Melpomene took the San Juan in tow.
On Thursday morning Collingwood made the painful decision that the prizes should be destroyed as the weather conditions made it impossible to take them to the safety of Gibraltar and he could not afford to allow them to be recovered by the enemy. Although this order was not scrupulously obeyed, it did result in both Dreadnought and Phoebe having to remove the crews from some of the prizes. For instance Dreadnought took 150 men from San Augustin.
Over the weekend the weather moderated and the task of moving the surviving prizes to Gibraltar could be undertaken. The first prize to reach Gibraltar was the San Juan de Nepomucheno, who entered the harbour under the tow of Thunderer on Monday 28th October. Dreadnought arrived a fortnight later.
At the end of November Dreadnought joined the force blockading the Spanish squadron in Cartagena, where she remained until January 1806. She then spent the next three months off Cadiz.
In May she returned to England arriving at Spithead on the 18th May and paid off. Thomas left Dreadnought on the 8th June and joined Ganges whose records show that he was discharged 'unserviceable' to Goliath on the 8th July.
However this information appears to be incorrect. At the marriage of his brother Francis in January 1807 he acted as guarantor and in the records was described as a Master's mate, the forerunner of the modern Sub-Lieutenant, on board the bomb vessel Devastation. The Muster and Pay List of Devastation confirm this information and then go on to tell one that he was rated Able Seaman on the 3 February 1807 and then Midshipman on the 7 April. He left the ship in July when she paid off.
What happened to him next is, at present, not known.