A head-and-shoulders portrait to the left, showing Wells in his commander’s full dress uniform (1812–15); it was painted by John Robinson Wells, the sitter’s son, in about 1814.
Thomas Wells was promoted lieutenant on 6 July 1796 and commander on 26 November 1808. That year, while commanding the sloop ‘Cruiser’, 18 guns, he engaged a Dutch flotilla, capturing a 10-gun schuyt. He was present at the Battle of the Nile as second lieutenant in the ‘Orion’, 74 guns. In 1811 he commanded the 14-gun sloop ‘Phipps’ and, the following year’ in 1812 captured the French privateer ‘Le Cerf’, 5 guns. Later that year he assisted in the recapture of the 14-gun British brig-sloop ‘Apelles’.