HMS Nymph was a 14-gun Swan-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Israel Pownoll and launched at Chatham Dockyard on 27 May 1778. She was accidentally burnt and sank in the British Virgin Islands in 1783.
HMS Lively was a 20-gun post ship of the Royal Navy, launched in 1756. During the Seven Years' War she captured several vessels, most notably the French corvette Valeur in 1760. She then served during the American Revolutionary War, where she helped initiate the Battle of Bunker Hill. The French captured her in 1778, but the British recaptured her in 1781. She was sold in 1784.
The Foudroyant was an 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was later captured and served in the Royal Navy as the Third Rate HMS Foudroyant.
Surveillante was an Iphigénie-class 32-gun frigate of the French Navy. She took part in the Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War, where she became famous for her battle with HMS Quebec; in 1783, she brought the news that the war was over to America. She later took part in the French Revolutionary Wars, and was eventually scuttled during the Expédition d'Irlande after sustaining severe damage in a storm. The wreck was found in 1979 and is now a memorial.
HMS Ariel was a 20-gun Sphinx-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. The French captured her in 1779, and she served during the American Revolutionary War for them, and later for the Americans, before reverting to French control. Her French crew scuttled Ariel in 1793 to prevent the British from recapturing her.
HMS Hinchinbrook was the French privateer Astrée, which the British captured in 1778 and took into the Royal Navy as a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate. She was Captain Horatio Nelson's second navy command, after the brig HMS Badger, and his first as post-captain. She was wrecked, with no loss of life, in January 1783.
HMS Albemarle was a 28-gun sixth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had been built as the French merchantman Ménagère, which the French Navy purchased in 1779. A British squadron captured her in September and she was commissioned into service with the Royal Navy. Amongst her commanders in her short career was Captain Horatio Nelson, who would later win several famous victories over the French. The Navy sold her in 1784. She subsequently became a merchant vessel again. In 1791 she transported convicts to Port Jackson as part of the third fleet. She then sailed to India where she picked up a cargo on behalf of the British East India Company. As she was returning to England a French privateer captured her.
Fort Zeelandia is located on Fort Island, a fluvial island of the Essequibo River delta in the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region of Guyana. Not to be confused with Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo, Suriname, the current brick fort was built in 1743 for the Essequibo colony, replacing an earlier wooden fort built in 1726, and is among the oldest structures in Guyana. The fort replaced Fort Kyk-Over-Al as the capital of Essequibo in 1739.
Iphigénie was a 32-gun Iphigénie-class frigate of the French Navy, and the lead ship of her class. She was briefly in British hands after the Anglo-Spanish capture of Toulon in August 1793 but the French recaptured her December. The Spanish captured her in 1795 and her subsequent fate is unknown.
The Dutch West Indies campaign was a series of minor conflicts in 1781 and 1782, in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and the American Revolutionary War. Following Great Britain's declaration of war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, the commander of the Royal Navy in the West Indies, was notified by a fast-sailing packet ship of the declaration. He immediately acted to ensure control over as many of the Dutch colonies as possible, capturing Sint Eustatius, a vital entrepot of French and Dutch trade between their colonies and Europe, in early February 1781. He also captured Saba and Sint Maarten, and orchestrated the capture of the Dutch colonial outposts of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo in South America. A planned expedition by Samuel Hood against Curaçao was called off on rumors that a French fleet was approaching. A French expedition in 1782 captured Demerara and Essequibo, although the fate of the other colonies were settled at the conclusion of the war.
HMS Leith, also known as HM hired armed ship Leith, was launched in 1744 or 1746 in the British "Plantations", more specifically, the colony of Maryland. From 1764 to 1777 she was a Greenlandman, that is a whaler, in the waters east of Greenland. Between 1777 and 1782 she served the Royal Navy as a transport and hired armed naval ship. She was last listed in 1783.
HMS Surprise was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, which served throughout the American Revolutionary War and was broken up in 1783.
HMS Shelanagig, was a sloop of 16-guns purchased in the West Indies in 1780 for the Royal Navy. She was under the command of James Shepherd,, and her Second Lieutenant was Home Popham.
Orénoque by one account was a French privateer sloop commissioned in French Guiana in 1781. Another account has her as a Dutch merchant vessel purchased into service. If so, she may have been one of the vessels that some British privateers captured during the raid on Essquinbo and Demerara in late February 1781. The French captured her in 1782 when they captured Demerara; they disposed of her in 1784 or so.
The raid on Demerara and Essequibo took place between 24 and 27 February 1781 in the context of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784). Six British privateers entered the rivers and captured 15 Dutch vessels before withdrawing.
HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.
HMS Ceres was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1777 for the British Royal Navy that the French captured in December 1778 off Saint Lucia. The French Navy took her into service as Cérès. The British recaptured her in 1782 and renamed her HMS Raven, only to have the French recapture her again early in 1783. The French returned her name to Cérès, and she then served in the French Navy until sold at Brest in 1791.
The French brig Duc de Chartres was built between 1779 and 1780 at Le Havre as a 24-gun privateer. As a privateer she captured one British warship before in 1781 the Royal Navy captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. She then captured several American privateers and armed merchant vessels, and one French naval corvette in a noteworthy single-ship action. The Navy sold Duc de Chartres in 1784.
HMS Stormont was the highly successful American privateer General Pickering, which Admiral Rodney's British fleet captured on 3 February 1781 at the capture of Sint Eustatius. She was one of nine captured American vessels that the British sent to Antigua a few days later to be assessed for possible purchase. The Royal Navy purchased General Pickering on 14 February and Commander Nicholas Charrington commissioned her in the Leeward Islands for service as HM Sloop Stormont. Commander Christmas Paul replaced Charrington.
HMS Fly was a cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1778. The French Navy captured Fly in June 1781.
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