Confiance, launched in 1797, was a privateer corvette from Bordeaux, famous for being Robert Surcouf's ship during the capture of the British East India Company's East IndiamanKent. The British Royal Navy captured Confiance in 1805, took her into service under her existing name, and sold her in 1810. Before she was sold, Confiance took part in two notable actions.
Completed in Bordeaux in November 1797, Confiance capsized at her launch and had to be refloated. On 3 February 1799 Confiance captured Echo as Echo was sailing from the Cape of Good Hope for London. Confiance sent Echo to France.[5] 1799 Confiance was commissioned under Aurnaud Taudin in May 1799.[1]
On 24 December 1799, Confiance encountered the American ship Atlantic and the British East India Company "extra ship" (chartered ship) Eliza Ann near the Sandheads in the Bay of Bengal. The engagement was inconclusive both that day and the next morning. Confiance broke off the action and sailed away early on Christmas morning.[6]
In May 1800, Confiance was recommissioned in Île de France and her command was awarded to Robert Surcouf, with a complement of 23 officers and 190 men, and an armament of six 8-pounder long guns, sixteen 6-pounders and two 36-pounder obusiers de vaisseau. [7]
On 7 October, she encountered the East IndiamanKent and captured her after a fierce battle; an 81-man prize crew under Joachim Drieux brought Kent to Île de France (Mauritius), where she was sold for 30,900 piastres.[8][9]
In 1801, Confiance had her crew reduced to 89 men[10] and sailed en aventurier to La Rochelle,[11] loaded with colonial goods for her return to France. According to one source Confiance sailed "à l'aventure"; she was a letter of marque, a vessel that was primarily a merchantman, but with the legal authorization to attack targets of opportunity.[10] On the journey, Surcouf still managed to capture a number of ships, notably the Portuguese Ebre,[10] with eighteen 12-pounder carronades and a 60-man crew; he released her against a ransom of 10,000 piastres and after exchanging her main mast for that of Confiance.[9] After her arrival in France, Confiance was commissioned as a merchantman under Paul Castanet from May 1802.[1]
Capture
By late 1803, she served in Muros, Spain, under Captain Roque and later under Papin.[1] On 4 June 1805, HMS Loire attacked the town of Muros, in Spain, and captured Confiance, as well as her consort Bélier. Loire had six men wounded in the landing party that captured a fort, a battery, and the two vessels, and nine men wounded on Loire by fire from the batteries before the British could capture them. The Spaniards lost 12 men killed, including the commander of the fort and Confiance's 2nd captain, and 30 men wounded, including most of Confiance's officers. Captain Frederick Maitland, of Loire, reported that Confiance was a "very fit Ship for His Majesty's Service; is reckoned to sail excessively fast; was to have gone to Sea in a few Days, bound to India, with a Complement of 300 men". Maitland burnt Bélier, which he described as also fitting for sea, "supposed to be destined to cruise to Westward of Cape Clear."[12]
The action led to promotion to Commander for Lieutenant James Lucas Yeo, who commanded the cutting out party. Lloyd's Patriotic Fund awarded a sword worth 150 guineas to Maitland, and two swords, each worth 50 guineas, to lieutenants Yeo and Mallock.[13]
HMS Confiance
The British commissioned Confiance into the Royal Navy in June as an 18-gun sloop under the newly promoted Commander James Yeo, and for the Channel. (Confiance kept her status as a sloop until 1807, when the Admiralty re-rated her as a sixth rate. She remained at Plymouth from 19 June to 14 March 1806 undergoing fitting out.[4][lower-alpha 1]
Confiance shared with Hero, Iris, and Révolutionnaire in the proceeds from the recapture on 11 January 1807 of the schooner Monarch.[14]
On 18 August, as Confiance was sailing to Oporto, Yeo received information that the Reitrada, a small Spanish privateer lugger that had been active along the coast of Portugal, was anchored at La Guardia. Yeo sent in a cutting out party in Confiance's boats. They captured the lugger, which was armed with one 12 and two 4-pounder guns, and had a crew of 30 men. The Spaniards had one man killed, several wounded, and the rest of the crew jumped overboard. The privateer had sheltered under the guns of two forts, which fired on the boats as they came in. One fort was armed with four 24-pounder guns and the other with six 18-pounder guns; there were also 150 troops. Despite the Spaniards' fire, the British sustained no casualties.[15]
Confiance sailed to Portugal on 16 January 1808. The French had captured Lisbon and the Royal Navy was maintaining a blockade in the Tagus where the onset of the Anglo-Russian War had trapped a squadron of Russian ships under the command of Vice-Admiral Dmitry Senyavin. Confiance was off the Tagus when on 13 February she sent her cutter and jolly boat, with 15 men under the command of Master's Mate R. Trist, to row picket because of rumours that Senyavin was about to leave. Trist observed a French gun-vessel anchored under the guns of Fort San Pedro, between Fort Belem and Fort Julian. He immediately attacked, capturing Gunboat #1, which was armed with one 24-pounder gun and two 6-pounder carronades. She had 100 stands of arms aboard, and a crew of 50 men under the command of ensign de vaisseau Gandolphe. The British suffered no casualties; the French had three men killed and nine wounded. Trist, who had passed his exams for Lieutenant a year earlier, received promotion to that rank for his feat.[16][17] In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasp "13 Feb. Boat Service 1808" to all surviving claimants from the action.
Confiance next sailed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On 14 January 1809 Confiance took part in the capture of Cayenne, French Guiana.
Yeo received permission from the commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy's Brazil station, Admiral Sir Sidney Smith to mount an operation against the French. Yeo took Confiance, two armed Portuguese brigs, an unarmed Portuguese brig, a Portuguese cutter, and 4-500 Portuguese soldiers, and sailed to Oyapoc, in French Guiana, which they captured on 8 December 1808.[lower-alpha 2] A week later they captured Appruagoc (or Appruague).[4]
Emboldened by the ease of their victories, Yeo and the Portuguese commander then decided to attack Cayenne. They captured three forts and defeated the French forces under the command of Victor Hugues, the French governor. British casualties were only one man killed and 23 men wounded.[19]
On 13 January 1809, while Yeo was on shore with three-quarters of Confiance's crew, seamen and marines, the French frigateTopaze approached Cayenne. She was carrying flour and was under orders to avoid combat, but the British did not know that. Midshipman G. Yeo, Yeo's younger brother, another midshipman, the remaining 25 men of the crew, and 20 local Negroes that the two midshipmen induced to join them, set sail towards Topaze. Topaze, judging from the sloop's boldness that she had company that would be forthcoming, turned away.[19] A few days later HMSCleopatra captured Topaze.
King Georgeknighted James Yeo in 1810 for his victory. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Confiance 14 Jany. 1809" to all surviving claimants from the operation.
Fate
The Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy offered the "Confiance Sloop, 560 [Tons Burthen]", lying at Deptford, for sale on 22 December 1810.[20] She sold on that day.[4] She appears to have sailed as a merchantman at least until 1816.[21]
Notes
↑ The British measured Confiance and reconstituted her plans. These were published in the first edition of Bateaux-Bois in February 1998, and then later in David Lyon's Sailing Navy List (p.275)
Robert Surcouf was a French privateer, businessman and slave trader who operated in the Indian Ocean from 1789 to 1808 during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Capturing over 40 prizes, he later amassed a large fortune from a variety of commercial activities, such as ship-owning, privateering, slave trading and owning land.
HMS Phaeton was a 38-gun, Minerva-class fifth rate of Britain's Royal Navy. This frigate was most noted for her intrusion into Nagasaki harbour in 1808. John Smallshaw built Phaeton in Liverpool between 1780 and 1782. She participated in numerous engagements during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars during which service she captured many prizes. Francis Beaufort, inventor of the Beaufort Wind-Scale, was a lieutenant on Phaeton when he distinguished himself during a successful cutting out expedition. Phaeton sailed to the Pacific in 1805, and returned in 1812. She was finally sold on 26 March 1828.
Topaze was a Gloire-class 44-gun frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her in 1809 and she then served with the Royal Navy under the name Jewel, and later Alcmene until she was broken up in 1816.
HMS Kingfisher was a Royal Navy 18-gun ship sloop, built by John King and launched in 1804 at Dover. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, first in the Caribbean and then in the Mediterranean before being broken up in 1816.
HMS Mercury was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the American War of Independence and serving during the later years of that conflict. She continued to serve during the years of peace and had an active career during the French Revolutionary Wars and most of the Napoleonic Wars, until being broken up in 1814.
HMS Topaze was a Royal Navy 32-gun frigate, originally completed in 1791 as a French Magicienne-class frigate. In 1793 Lord Hood's fleet captured her at Toulon. The Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name. She was broken up in 1814.
The action of 22 January 1809 was a minor naval engagement fought off the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe during the Napoleonic Wars. The action was fought as part of the blockade of Guadeloupe and neighbouring Martinique by a large British Royal Navy squadron, which was seeking to cut the islands off from contact and supplies from France by preventing the passage of shipping from Europe to the islands. The British blockade was part of their preparation for planned invasions during the next year.
HMS Hazard was a 16-gun Royal Navy Cormorant-class ship-sloop built by Josiah & Thomas Brindley at Frindsbury, Kent, and launched in 1794. She served in the French Revolutionary Wars and throughout the Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes, and participated in a notable ship action against the French frigate Topaze, as well as in several other actions and campaigns, three of which earned her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. Hazard was sold in 1817.
The Portuguese conquest of French Guiana, also known as Conquest of Cayenne, was a military operation against Cayenne, capital of the South American colony of French Guiana, launched in January 1809 in the context of the Napoleonic Wars. The invasion was undertaken by a combined expeditionary force that included Portuguese and British military contingents.
HMS Cleopatra was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had a long career, seeing service during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. During the latter wars she fought two notable engagements with larger French opponents. In the first engagement she was forced to surrender, but succeeded in damaging the French ship so badly that she was captured several days later, while Cleopatra was retaken. In the second she forced the surrender of a 40-gun frigate. After serving under several notable commanders she was broken up towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Persian was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Daniel List and launched at Cowes in 1809. She captured two privateers before she wrecked in 1813.
HMS Ferret was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Benjamin Tanner at Dartmouth and launched in 1806, 19 months late. She served on the Jamaica, Halifax, and Leith stations during which time she took three privateers as prizes before she was wrecked in 1813.
HMS Scorpion was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1803. She was the first of the class to be built since the launching of Cruizer in 1797. Scorpion had a long and active career during the Napoleonic Wars, earning her crews three clasps to the Naval General Service Medal when the Admiralty authorized it in 1847, two for single-ship actions. She also took a number of prizes. Scorpion was sold in 1819.
HMS Mosambique was the French privateer schooner Mosambique, built in 1798, and commissioned as a privateer in 1804. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1804 and took her into service. She served in the West Indies, engaging in several indecisive single-ship actions before she captured one French privateer. She was sold there in 1810.
HMS Lapwing was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.
HMS Barbara was an Adonis class schooner of the Royal Navy and launched in 1806. A French privateer captured her in 1807 and she became the French privateer Pératy. The Royal Navy recaptured her in 1808. She was paid off in June 1814 and sold in February 1815.
Kent, launched in 1799, was an East Indiaman of the British East India Company. On her first voyage in 1800 she was on her way to Bengal and Bencoolen when the French privateer Robert Surcouf captured her near the mouth of the Ganges.
Caroline was a French privateer commissioned in Saint-Malo in 1804. She served in the Indian Ocean, based at Île de France. As she was returning to Saint-Malo, a sloop of the British Royal Navy captured her off Cape Finisterre in 1809; she was accidentally sunk shortly thereafter.
Two vessels named His Majesty's hired armed lugger Sandwich served the British Royal Navy, one during the French Revolutionary Wars, and the other during the Napoleonic Wars.
Esparteiro, Comandante António Marques (1976). Catálogo Dos Navios Brigantinos (1640-1910). Lisbon: Centro de Estudos de Marinha.
Long, William H. (1895). Medals of the British navy and how they were won: with a list of those officers, who for their gallant conduct were granted honorary swords and plate by the Committee of the Patriotic Fund. London: Norie & Wilson.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
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