Privateer
Duc de Chartres captured HMS Pluto, a 16-gun sloop, on 30 November 1780. Pluto, under the command of Commander Thomas Geary, was about 140 miles south west of the Scilly Isles in drifting fog when she sighted a ship. Cautious, Pluto prepared for action and when the two vessels passed each other, they exchanged broadsides. Duc de Chartres turned and gave chase, catching up with her quarry. Unable to escape, and outgunned, Pluto struck. [Note 1]
Duc de Chartres also captured the hired brig Earl of Inchquin on 15 March 1781. Earl of Inchquin, of six guns and under the command of Lieutenant William Robertson, was in the Channel when she encountered Duc de Chartres, which gave chase. The French privateers Bougainville (24 or 32 guns), and Tartare (12 guns), joined the chase. Unable to escape, Robertson struck.
In spring 1781, Admiral George Darby sailed a fleet to Gibraltar to relieve the siege for a second time. On the way the fleet captured Duc de Chartres, the Spanish frigate Santa Leucadia, and the French brig Trois Amis. Although HMS Cumberland executed the actual capture of Duc de Chartres, the entire British fleet of 42 vessels shared in the resulting prize money. [7]
At the time of her capture Duc de Chartres was under the command of Jean-Baptiste l'Écolier. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. The capture of Leocadia took place in the action of 1 May 1781, off Brest. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Leocadia.
HMS Duc de Chartres
Between 26 May and 17 September Duc de Chartres was at Portsmouth undergoing coppering and fitting. The Royal Navy commissioned Duc de Chartres under Commander John Child Purvis on 7 October 1781 and he immediately sailed her for North America.
Around August 1782 Duc de Chartres captured the Connecticut letter of marque schooner Turn of Times. She was armed with four guns and had a crew of 25 men under the command of John Cook. She had sailed to Demerara and was on her return voyage when the British captured her and sent her into Bermuda. [8]
On 9 August 1782, Duc de Chartres encountered the French navy's corvette Aigle, of 22 guns and 136 men. In the subsequent hour-long action, Aigle lost 13 men killed, including her captain, and 15 wounded; Duc de Chartres had no casualties. [9] [Note 2]
On 15 March 1783 the British frigates Astraea and Vestal, and Duc de Chartres captured the Massachusetts letter of marque Julius Caesar. [11] Julius Caesar was a privateer of eighteen 9-pounder guns and carried a crew of 100 men under the command of Captain Thomas Benson, of Salem. Her captors sent her into New York City where the Vice admiralty court condemned her. [12]
Duc de Chartres captured the Connecticut armed brig Thetis on 2 April. Thetis, of 100 tons (bm) and six guns, had a crew of 21 men under the command of Robert Colfax. She was tried and condemned at New York. [13]
The highly successful action against Aigle led, on 1 September 1783, to Purvis receiving promotion to post-captain. [14]
Commander John Shairp replaced Purvis. Then in 1784 Captain William Afleck replaced Shairp for the purpose of sailing Duc de Chartres back to Britain.
Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Active or HMS Actif, with a thirteenth announced:
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 1781. She was sold in 1784.
HMS Cumberland was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 29 March 1774 at Deptford Dockyard.
Ships of the French Navy have borne the name Aigle ("eagle"), honouring the bird of prey as well as the symbol of the First French Empire
HMS Antigua has been the name of four ships of the Royal Navy, named after the Caribbean island of Antigua:
HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, built in the Grove Street shipyard of Adams & Barnard at Depford in 1773. The French captured her in 1798 but the British recaptured her in 1803. She was broken up in 1810.
HMS Amphitrite was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. She served during the American Revolution primarily in the economic war. On the one hand she protected the trade by capturing or assisting at the capture of a number of privateers, some of which the Royal Navy then took into service. On the other hand, she also captured many American merchant vessels, most of them small. Amphitrite was wrecked early in 1794.
At least four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Port Royal, after the British naval base Port Royal in Jamaica:
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 Monsieur was the former 40-gun French privateer Monsieur, built at Le Havre between July 1778 and 1779, then armed at Granville. The Royal Navy captured her in 1780 and subsequently put her into service as a 36-gun Fifth Rate. This frigate was sold in 1783.
HMS Crescent was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Crescent was launched in 1779. The French captured her in 1781. She was wrecked in 1786.
HMS Southampton was the name ship of the 32-gun Southampton-class fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1757 and served for more than half a century until wrecked in 1812.
Comte de Maurepas was a common name for French vessels in the 18th century. The name comes from that of the French statesman Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas.
HMS Duc de la Vaguinon was the French privateer cutter Duc de la Vauguyon, launched in 1779, that the British captured later that same year. The British took her into the Royal Navy, but she was almost immediately lost; her total career lasted only about nine months.
HMS Polecat was the Pennsylvania privateer Navarro, Captain William Keeler, which HMS Orpheus captured in March 1782. Between her commissioning on 18 July 1781 under Captain Woolman Sutton and her capture, Navarro captured two British vessels and recaptured one American vessel. One vessel that Navarro captured was Rebecca, M'Fadzean, master, which was sailing from Jamaica to London when Navarro captured Rebecca at 44°00′N26°50′W, north of the Azores.
The French frigate Aigle was launched in 1780 as a privateer. The French Navy purchased her in 1782, but the British captured her that same year and took her into the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Aigle. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served primarily in the Mediterranean, where she was wrecked in 1798.
HMS Tamar or Tamer was a 16-gun Favourite-class sloop-of-war of the Royal Navy.
HMS Resolution was a cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1779. She captured two French privateers in 1781 and a Dutch privateer in 1783 after a single ship action. Resolution captured one more small French privateer in June 1797; later that month Resolution went missing in the North Sea, presumed to have foundered.
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.
Earl of Inchiquin was launched at Swansea in 1764. She sailed between Cork and Swansea and then became a Portsmouth tender. The British Royal Navy hired her in 1776 or earlier. A French privateer captured her in the Channel in 1781.
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