The Baltic traffic exceeded Britain's next-largest convoy route even though winter ice closed the sea for three months. Six convoys carried 720 ships home in July 1809, while later escorts moved groups of four or five hundred sail. The ten-gun HMS Cherokee brought 366 merchantmen from Gothenburg, showing that escort importance did not track warship size alone. In 1810 two opposing convoys and their escorts placed roughly a thousand merchant vessels in view of the Swedish royal yacht. The scale makes convoy protection a central naval operation rather than a secondary service behind fleet battle.
Notable Point · 2:37:03-2:39:29
The enormous scale of Baltic convoy protection
Summer Baltic convoys moved hundreds of ships at a time, with even small Royal Navy escorts shepherding merchant fleets through batteries and narrow waters.