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Auction: 1025 - The Turl Collection of Naval General Service Medals 1793 - 1840
Lot: 91

The Unique Four Clasp Combination N.G.S. to Commander William Hole, Royal Navy, Who Served in Numerous American Boat Actions Including His Command of a Boat at the Destruction of Commodore Barney´s Flotilla Up the Patuxent and in a Similar Capacity in the Boats Under Commanders Lockyer, Montrenor and Roberts During Their Epic 36 Mile Pull To Engage and Capture Five American Gun Boats on Lake Borgne, 14.12.1814; Hole Landed and Served With the Army in the Attack on Baltimore and Took Part in the Storming and Capture of a Heavy Battery in the Expedition Against New Orleans Naval General Service 1793-1840, four clasps, Martinique, 13 Dec Boat Service 1809, Guadaloupe, 14 Dec Boat Service 1814 (William Hole, Midshipman.), very fine, and a unique combination of clasps Estimate £ 16,000-20,000 William Hole served as Midshipman in H.M.S. Wolverine as part of the combined naval and military assault and capture of the French-held island of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, 24.2.1809; Hole served as the same rank in H.M.S. Bacchus, when the boats from the latter and H.M. Ships Achates, Attentive, Pultusk and Thetis under the command of Captain W. Elliot were engaged for the cutting out of the French 16-gun brig-corvette Nisus and the destruction of a gun battery in Hayes Harbour, north-west of Guadaloupe, 12.12.1809; Hole was the only recipient of this clasp from H.M.S. Bacchus; Hole served as the same rank and in the same vessel for the combined naval and military operations commanded by Vice Admiral the Honourable Sir Alexander Cochrane and Lieutenant General Sir George Beckwith which culminated in the capture of the French-held Island of Guadaloupe, January-February 1810; Hole served as Master´s Mate in H.M.S. Traave and was present in the boats commanded by Commanders Lockyer, Montrenor and Roberts who were tasked with an attack on an American force of 5 gunboats, a sloop and a schooner, 14.12.1814. This attack was to take place on Lake Borgne in preparation for clearing the way for a direct assault on New Orleans. On the 12th at 9.30am, arriving within longshot of the enemy, Commander Lockyer and his men, after a 36-mile pull against a strong current all the way, stopped for breakfast. At 10.30am they took to their oars again, with the tide running against them at three miles an hour, and moved forward into a hail of round and grape shot. Almost at noon, Commander Lockyer´s boat, being foremost, got alongside the gunboat with the Commodore´s pennant and a desperate fight ensued in which nearly all the assailants were either killed or wounded. Commander Lockyer was among the latter, but the remnant gained the American´s deck and, being well supported by other boats, the vessel was soon taken. The guns of the captured gunboat were turned on the remaining four and, with the boats of the second and third divisions arriving in quick succession, the whole American force was taken in five minutes. One of the most daring naval feats on record was not without loss, mostly sustained from the galling fire on the boats when advancing to the attack against a heavy current - 17 killed and 67 wounded, three mortally. This was the last and indeed the largest Boat Action for which the Naval General Service 1793-1840 medal was granted. Approximately 8 ´13 December Boat Service 1809´ clasps issued Commander William Hole, R.N. born November 1792, the only son of W.B. Hole, Esq., of Jamaica and nephew of Rear-Admiral Lewis Hole; joined the Royal Navy as First Class Volunteer, October 1805; he initially served in the Star sloop (Captain J. Simspon) on the Lisbon Channel and the Newfoundland stations before removing with his Captain to H.M.S. Wolverine, with whom he served at the reduction of Martinique, ´While next attached, between March in the latter year and June, 1811, to the Bacchus schooner, Lieut. Commander Chas. Dayman Jermy, he commanded one of the boats of a squadron at the cutting-out, 12 Dec. 1809, of Le Nisus...... shared also in a gallant action, in which the Bacchus, with a loss of 5 men badly wounded, beat off two French schooner-privateers.... He was likewise twice engaged with French row-boats who had designedly approached the Bacchus; and was on more than one occasion invested with the navigation of prizes into port.´ (O´Byrne); transferred as Master´s Mate to H.M.S. Ganymede, June 1811, in which he served in the West Indies and the Mediterranean; after two years he was appointed to the Bacchus sloop (then commanded by his uncle), ´Being subsequently, in April, 1814, appointed to the Traave, armée-en-flûte Captains Rowland Money and John Codd, he proceeded in that vessel to North America, where, after having commanded a boat at the destruction of Commodore Barney´s flotilla up the Patuxent, he landed and served with the army in the attack upon Baltimore. On 14 Dec. 1814 he next commanded one of the boats of a squadron at the capture, on Lake Borgne, of five American gun-boats under Commodore Jones, which did not surrender until the British, after a stern conflict, had endured a loss of 17 men killed and 77 wounded. Joining then in the hostilities against New Orleans, he again had charge of a boat, an 8-oared cutter, on the river Mississippi, and bore an active part in all the scenes which were there enacted, including the storming and capture of a heavy battery. During six whole weeks he was in consequence exposed, in his unsheltered boat, to the inclemency of the season which then prevailed, undergoing the greatest hardships, and being often, with his men, severely frost-bitten´ (O´Byrne refers); Lieutenant February 1815; employed with the Coast Guard from March 1827, ´a service in which his exertions have been of a very signal nature, as testified by numerous high testimonials from his superior officers, as well by various letters of thanks addressed to him by Lloyd´s for salvage of property in cases of ship wreck. He has been instrumental...in the conviction of an extraordinary number of smugglers´ (Ibid); Commander 1851. Provenance: Wallis & Wallis 1968 Christie July 1985

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£17,000