Phaeton (carriage) Roger Button, Benjamin's father, owns a phaeton that is his primary mode of transportation until Benjamin buys the first automobile in Baltimore. In Susannah Kells' novel "Fallen Angels", a phaeton is the transportation of choice for the main character, Campion, who later crashes the carriage in a perfect example of its dangerous and fickle reputation. The character Mr. Spenlow from the novel "David Copperfield" dies suddenly of a heart attack while driving his phaeton home. Henry James, in his short story "An International Episode" (1878) has Lord Lambeth driven through town in "a little basket-phaeton" by his companion Bessie Aldon.
HMS Phaeton (1782) 18-gun Cruizer class brig-sloop "Harrier", Captain Edward Ratsey. After exchanges of fire first with "Harrier" and then with "Phaeton", "Sémillante" took refuge under the guns of a shore battery. Unable to dislodge her, the two British vessels eventually sailed off, each having suffered two men wounded. "Sémillante" was reported to have suffered 13 killed and 36 wounded. After resupplying at San Jacinto, "Sémillante" intended to sail for Mexico in March 1805 to fetch specie for the Philippines; the encounter with "Phaeton" and "Harrier" foiled the plan. Motard returned to the Indian Ocean, operating for the next three years against British