Waakzaamheid (right) at the action of 24 October 1798 | |
History | |
---|---|
Dutch Republic | |
Operator | Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier [1] |
Builder | J. Hand, Enkhuizen [1] |
Launched | 1786 |
Captured | 23 May 1794 |
France | |
Name | Vigilance |
Acquired | 23 May 1794 by capture |
Fate | Sold 1795 |
Batavian Republic | |
Name | Waazaamheid |
Acquired | 1795 by purchase |
Captured | 24 October 1798 |
Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Waaksaamheidt |
Acquired | 24 October 1798 by capture |
Fate | Sold September 1802 |
General characteristics [2] [3] | |
Class and type | |
Tons burthen | 50384⁄94, or 504 (bm) |
Length |
|
Beam |
|
Depth | 12+9⁄11voet |
Depth of hold | 10 ft 6 in (3.2 m) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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The Waakzaamheid was a 24-gun corvette of the Dutch States Navy launched at Enkhuizen in 1786. The French Navy captured her in 1794 and renamed her Vigilance. She subsequently served in a French squadron which attacked British factories and merchantmen off the West African coast in 1794. By the next year, France overran the Dutch Republic and reorganised it into the client Batavian Republic, selling Vigilance to the newly formed Batavian Navy, who renamed her after the ship's original name. In the action of 24 October 1798, Waakzaamheid along with the Batavian frigate Furie was captured near the Texel by the British frigate Sirius. The Royal Navy proceeded to commission her as HMS Waaksaamheid until selling the ship in September 1802.
Waakzaamheid was a 24-gun corvette ordered by Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier of the Dutch States Navy. It was built by J. Hand and launched in Enkhuizen in 1786. [1]
The French Navy captured Waakzaamheid on 23 May 1794 during the War of the First Coalition, renaming her Vigilance. [2] She was subsequently assigned to a French squadron consisting of the frigates Experiment and Félicité, the brig-sloops Épervier and Mutine along with Vigilance. The squadron cruised the West African coast in September 1794, attacking British factories and merchant shipping. Among the many British merchantmen they captured were the Sierra Leone Company vessels Harpy and Thornton and the slave ship Molly. [4] In 1795, France overran the Dutch Republic and reorganised it into the client Batavian Republic. Vigilance was sold to the newly formed Batavian Navy, who renamed her after the ship's original name. [2]
In the action of 24 October 1798, the British frigate Sirius captured Waakzaamheid along with the Batavian frigate Furie near the Texel as the two ships were transporting supplies and French troops to support a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. [5] Waakzaamheid was under the command of Senior Captain Meindert van Neirop, and was armed with twenty-four 9-pounder guns on her main deck and two 6-pounders on her forecastle. She had 100 Batavian sailors and 122 French soldiers aboard her, and was transporting 2,000 stands of arms as well as other ordnance stores. [5] Van Neirop put up no struggle to Sirius. The sloop Kite shared in the capture. [6]
Waakzaamheid arrived at Sheerness on 17 November 1798. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Waaksamheid and was fitted out there between July 1799 and May 1800. In August 1800, she was part of a British fleet under Vice-Admiral Archibald Dickson which accompanied a diplomatic mission to Copenhagen headed by Lord Whitworth. The fleet did not go beyond Skagen Odde, and returned to Great Yarmouth on 14 September. [7]
Captain Robert Hall was promoted to post captain on 18 November 1799. After his return to England on 31 August 1800 as captain of HMS Assistance, he took command of Waaksamheid on the North Sea Fleet. [8] In 1800 Waaksaamheid participated in cruises off the Dutch coast in Dickson's squadron, and escorted convoys in the North Sea between the Baltic and Leith. On 11 October 1801 she was at Sheerness, waiting to be paid off following the signing of the Treaty of Amiens.
The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of his Majesty's Navy" offered "Waaksamheidt, 504 Tons, Copper-bottomed, and Copper braces, and Pintles, lying at Deptford", for sale on 1 August 1802. [9] She was offered for sale again on 9 September. She sold then. [3]
HMS Sirius was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Between 1797 and 1805, the Sirius was engaged in maintaining the blockade of Napoleonic Europe. She was lost in 1810 when her crew scuttled her after she grounded during the Battle of Grand Port.
HMS Zebra was a 16-gun Zebra-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 31 August 1780 at Gravesend. She was the second ship to bear the name. After twenty years of service, including involvement in the West Indies campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars, she was converted into a bomb vessel in 1798. In this capacity she took part in attacks on French ports, and was present at both battles of Copenhagen. The Navy sold her in 1812.
Rear-Admiral Samuel Story was a Dutch naval officer. He commanded a Batavian Navy squadron which surrendered without a fight to the British Royal Navy during the Vlieter incident in 1799.
HMS Martin was a 16-gun sloop of the Royal Navy. She served at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 and captured two privateers before she disappeared in 1800.
Seine was a 38-gun French Seine-class frigate that the Royal Navy captured in 1798 and commissioned as the fifth-rate HMS Seine. On 20 August 1800, Seine captured the French ship Vengeance in a single ship action that would win for her crew the Naval General Service Medal. Seine's career ended in 1803 when she hit a sandbank near the Texel.
The action of 24 October 1798 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between a British Royal Navy frigate and two ships of the Batavian Navy. The Dutch ships were intercepted in the North Sea within hours of leaving port, 30 nautical miles (56 km) northwest of the Texel, by the British ship HMS Sirius. Both Dutch vessels were carrying large quantities of military supplies and French soldiers, reinforcements for the French and Irish forces participating in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Although the rebellion had been defeated a month earlier, word of the British victory had not yet reached the European continent, and the Dutch force was intended to supplement a larger French squadron sent earlier in October. The French had already been defeated at the Battle of Tory Island and the Dutch suffered a similar outcome, both ships defeated in turn by the larger and better armed British vessel.
HMS Wilhelmina was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was originally the Dutch States Navy frigate Wilhelmina, launched in Vlissingen in 1787. In 1795, after France occupied the Dutch Republic and reorganised it into the Batavian Republic, Wilhelmina was renamed Furie and incorporated into the Batavian Navy. In 1798, Furie, alongside the Batavian corvette Waakzaamheid, was intercepted by the British frigate Sirius while transporting supplies and French troops to support a rebellion against British rule in Ireland.
HMS Decade was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was formerly the French 'Galathée-class frigateDécade, which the British had captured in 1798. She served with the British during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was sold out of the service in 1811.
HMS Circe was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1785 but not completed or commissioned until 1790. She then served in the English Channel on the blockade of French ports before she was wrecked in 1803.
Salamine was originally the Spanish Navy's Infante 18-gun brig, built in 1787 at Cadiz. The French Navy captured her at Toulon in December 1793 and recommissioned her; they renamed her on 10 May 1798 as Salamine, for the battle of Salamis. On 18 June 1799, HMS Emerald captured her and she was brought into Royal Navy service as HMS Salamine. She served briefly in the Mediterranean, where she captured two French privateers and several merchant vessels before the Royal Navy sold her at Malta in 1802, after the Treaty of Amiens ended the war with France.
The Dutch sloop Sireene was launched in 1786. The British captured her in 1796 at the capitulation of Saldanha Bay. She then served in the Royal Navy, first briefly as the sixth rate HMS Daphne, and then from 1798 as the prison ship HMS Laurel. The Admiralty sold her in 1821.
Diligent was a hired armed cutter of the Royal Navy which served in the French Revolutionary Wars. She was a small vessel, of 44 tons (bm) and six 2-pounder guns, and she served from 27 February 1793 to 1 November 1801.
The Dutch frigate Alliantie was launched in 1788 in Amsterdam. HMS Stag captured her in 1795 and the British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Alliance. The Admiralty converted her to a storeship shortly after her capture and fitting. She participated in the siege of Acre in 1799 with the result that her crew qualified for the Naval General Service Medal issued in 1847. She was sold in 1802.
HMS Janus was the Dutch fifth-rate Argo, built at the dockyard of the Amsterdam Admiralty, and launched in 1790. HMS Phoenix captured her on 12 May 1796. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Janus. She was a receiving ship by 1798 and in Ordinary by 1807. The Navy sold her in 1811.
HMS Berbice was the Batavian Republic's schooner Serpent that HMS Heureux took possession of at Berbice in 1803 at the capitulation of the colony and that the Navy purchased in 1804. Berbice foundered in 1806 off Demerara.
Robert Winthrop was a scion of the New England Winthrop family of high colonial civil servants, and a Vice-Admiral of the Blue in the Royal Navy. Among his many feats of arms was taking possession of admiral Samuel Story's squadron of the Batavian Navy after its surrender in the Vlieter Incident.
Minerva was launched in 1787 at Veere for the navy of the Dutch Republic. In 1799 the Royal Navy captured her. She became HMS Braak, but the Navy sold her with the arrival of the Peace of Amiens. Daniel Bennet purchased her and she became the whaler Africaine or African or Africa. She made two whaling voyages. After 1805 she was still listed in Lloyd's Register for some years but there is no record of further whaling or other voyages.
HMS Melpomene was a 38-gun frigate of the Royal Navy. Originally a French vessel, she was captured at Calvi on 10 August 1794 and first saw British service in the English Channel, where she helped to contain enemy privateering. In October 1798, she chased a French frigate squadron sent to find the French fleet under Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart, that was routed at the Battle of Tory Island and in August 1799, she joined Andrew Mitchell's squadron for the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland.
HMS Stag was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate built for the Royal Navy. She was ordered in 1790 and work began in March 1792 at Chatham Docks. Completed in August 1794, Stag spent much of her service in home waters, where she worked to protect British shipping from French privateers. In an action on 22 August 1795, Stag engaged, and forced the surrender of, the Dutch frigate Alliante, and took part in the chase that ended with the capture of Bonne Citoyenne by HMS Phaeton on 10 March 1796.