English: The Lady Hobart packet, sinking: having struck on an island of floating ice
Print. This Post Office packet, commander by William Dorset Fellowes (see MNT0202) was bound for England from Halifax, Nova Scotia, when, on 26 June 1803, she was first attacked by a French privateeting schooner which mistook her as defenceless: Fellowes opened fire and instead took the schooner. He sent her to England under a prize crew commanded by two Royal Naval lieutenants who happened to be on boad the packet as pasengers, and sent off most of his prisoners other than the French captain in Newfoundland fishing schooners which happened to be nearby. On 28th, in fog, the 'Lady Hobart' hit an iceberg at speed and rapidly sank: all those on board, including women passengers and Fellowes's wife, took to the cutter and jolly boat and survived eight days adrift before being picked up by another schooner that took them to Newfoundland. The only casualty was the French captain prisoner, who under the influence of rum, was reported as killing himself by jumping overboard from the boat. Fellowes and his company later left Newfoundland in a ship taking salt fish to Oporto but in mid-ocean transferred to an American vessel they encountered which carried them into Bristol. Having sent a report of the loss, written in Newfoundland, to the Postmaster General he subsequently expanded it into a more public account published as a book. [PvdM 5/15]