History | |
---|---|
France | |
Name | Robuste |
Owner | Bouteiller (Père et fils) [1] |
Builder | Nantes |
Launched | 1789 |
Fate | Sold 1793 |
France | |
Name | Robuste |
Owner | French Navy |
Acquired | December 1793 |
Commissioned | Rochefort, Charente-Maritime |
Captured | 1796 |
Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Scourge |
Acquired | 1796 by capture |
Fate | Sold 1802 |
General characteristics [2] | |
Type | Sloop |
Displacement | 542 tons [3] (French) |
Tons burthen | 372 34⁄94 (bm) |
Length |
|
Beam | 28 ft 11+5⁄8 in (8.8 m) |
Depth of hold | 12 ft 10+1⁄2 in (3.9 m) |
Sail plan | Sloop |
Complement | |
Armament |
|
The French corvette Robuste was a vessel built at Nantes in 1789 as a slaver that made her first and only slave-trading voyage in 1789-90. The French navy purchased her in December 1793 and she served as a 22-gun corvette in the Channel. The British captured her in 1796 and took her into the Royal Navy as HMS Scourge. She captured a number of French privateers, primarily in the West Indies, before the navy sold her in 1802.
Captain J.B. Magré sailed Robuste from Nantes on 10 May 1789, bound for West Africa. She arrived at Îles de Los on 6 October, where she gathered her slaves. She left on 21 July and sailed from the West Indies. She arrived at Les Cayes on 6 September, and sold her slaves there. She had embarked 339 slaves and disembarked 305, for a loss rate of 10%. She sailed from Les Cayes on 4 March 1790, and arrived home on 23 April. [1]
On 30 May 1795 Robuste was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Gautreau. She was operating between Lorient and Mindin. She had been escorting convoys between Verdon and the mouth of the Loire, and then returning to Lorient. [4] Then between 11 May 1795 and 7 July, while under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Arnous, she was escorting a convoy from Lorient to the Raz de Sein.
On 16 April 1796, while in the Bay of Audierne, she encountered HMS Pomone. [5] Pomone captured Robuste, of 22 guns and 145 men, [6] off Penmarch Point. [3] Robuste was sailing from Brest to L'Orient. [6] The Royal Navy took her into service as Scourge. Prize money for Robuste was paid in December 1796. [7]
The Royal Navy commissioned Scourge in August 1796 under Commander Henry Richard Glynn. [2]
On 12 February 1797 Phoenix was in company with Triton and Scourge off the Irish coast. Together they captured the French privateer Difficile. She was armed with 18 guns and had a crew of 206 men. She was three days out of Brest; Phoenix put a prize crew aboard and sent her into Portsmouth. [8] The same three ships also captured Jeune Emilie and Recovery, though they shared the capture of Recovery with HMS Unite, and HMS Stag. [9]
Scourge's next capture occurred a few days later, on 21 February. Scourge chased a French privateer for three hours before catching up with her five or six leagues off the coast. The privateer was Furet, pierced for 14 guns. She had 10 mounted; the other four were in her hold. She also had a crew of 50 men, as well as 22 English prisoners, seven of whom were wounded. Under the command of Benoish Giron she was 20 days out of Lorient. Glynn described Furet as being coppered and a fast sailer. [10]
Commander Samuel Warren replaced Glynn and sailed Scourge to the Leeward Islands on 7 June. [2]
On 28 September Scourge captured the French privateer schooner Sarazine off Marie-Galante. Sarazine, of Guadaloupe, was armed with six guns and had a crew of 58 men; Warren sent them into Port Royal, Martinique. Sarazine had been out 10 days but had not captured anything. [11]
Next, Scourge detained on 4 December the schooner Amazon, of 90 tons (bm), which had been sailing with provisions from Baltimore to Surinam. The capture took place too windward of Dominique and Scourge sent Amazon into Saint Pierre, Martinique. Amazon had been a prize to the French privateer Hannibal. [12]
On 23 January 1798, Scourge captured Neustra Segniora de la Providentia; the vessel and cargo were condemned at Tortola. [13] Two weeks later, on 8 February, Scourge and Roebuck captured the schooner Betsey, which too was condemned at Tortola. [14]
Scourge and Aimable captured the French privateer Triomphe (Triumph) on 6 April. Two days later they captured the French privateer Chasseur. Both captures took place off Porto Rico. Triomphe was a brig of 14 guns and 88 men; Chasseur was a schooner of two guns and 18 men. [12]
On 1 May Scourge chased a French 14-gun privateer brig on shore at St. Martin's. The privateer's crew escaped after setting fire to the brig, which blew up before boats from Scourge could reach it. [15]
On 20 January 1799, Scourge captured a Spanish brig from Cadiz bound to La Guira with a cargo of wine, brandy, and merchandise. Scourge brought the prize into Trinidad. [16]
In early to mid-July July 1800 Scourge, which had been out in the West Indies since 13 April 1997, returned to Great Britain as part of the escort of the about 91 sail of the West India fleet. On 20 August, she passed up the Bristol Channel with 11 vessels out of a convoy of 41 vessels that Invincible was taking to the Thames, the rest of the vessels being destined for Liverpool and Glasgow. [17] Scourge arrived at Portsmouth two days later. [18]
On 14 September Scourge was paid off, and her crew turned over to Ganges. [19]
The Commissioners of the Navy offered Scourge for sale at Portsmouth on 11 August 1802. [20] She sold that month. [2]
Her hull was offered for sale at North Shields on 2 November. [21]
HMS Galatea was a fifth-rate 32-gun sailing frigate of the British Royal Navy that George Parsons built at Bursledon and launched in 1794. Before she was broken up in 1809 she captured numerous prizes and participated in a number of actions, first in the Channel and off Ireland (1794–1803), and then in the Caribbean (1802–1809), including one that earned her crew the Naval General Service Medal.
HMS Indefatigable was one of the Ardent-class 64-gun third-rate ships-of-the-line designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1761 for the Royal Navy. She was built as a ship-of-the-line, but most of her active service took place after her conversion to a 44-gun razee frigate. She had a long career under several distinguished commanders, serving throughout the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She took some 27 prizes, alone or in company, and the Admiralty authorised the issue of four clasps to the Naval General Service Medal in 1847 to any surviving members of her crews from the respective actions. She was broken up in 1816.
HMS Babet was a 20-gun sixth-rate post ship of the British Royal Navy. She had previously been a corvette of the French Navy under the name Babet, until her capture in 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars. She served with the British, capturing several privateers and other vessels, and was at the Battle of Groix. She disappeared in the Caribbean in 1800, presumably having foundered.
Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock. Due to this, the ship was taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.
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.
HMS Druid was a 32-gun Hermione-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1783 at Bristol. She served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing numerous small prizes. One of her commanders, Captain Philip Broke, described Druid as a "point of honour ship", i.e., a ship too large to run but too small to fight. He and his biographer's view was that it was a disgrace to use a ship like her as a warship. She was broken up in 1813, after a thirty-year career.
HMS Spitfire was a Tisiphone-class fireship of the Royal Navy. She served during the years of peace following the end of the American War of Independence, and by the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, had been reclassified as a 14-gun sloop-of-war. Spitfire went on to serve under a number of notable commanders during a successful career that saw her capture a considerable number of French privateers and small naval vessels. She spent most of her career in Home waters, though during the later part of her life she sailed further afield, to the British stations in North America and West Africa. She survived the Napoleonic Wars and was eventually sold in 1825 after a period spent laid up.
HMS Hornet was a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, ordered 18 February 1793, built by Marmaduke Stalkart and launched 3 February 1794 at Rotherhithe. Hornet saw most of her active duty during the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Napoleonic Wars she served for about six years as a hospital ship before being laid up in 1811 and sold in 1817.
HMS Porcupine was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1777 and broken up in 1805. During her career she saw service in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.
His Majesty's Hired armed lugger Duke of York served the Royal Navy from 14 October 1794 to 2 January 1799 when she foundered in the North Sea.
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.
HMS Port Royal was a 10-gun schooner that the British Royal Navy bought in Jamaica in 1796. The French captured her in 1797 and the British recaptured her later that year, when they renamed her HMS Recovery. She captured three privateers, one in a single-ship action, before the Navy sold her in 1801.
HMS Clyde was a Royal Navy Artois-class frigate built at Chatham Dockyard of fir, and launched in 1796. In 1797, she was one of only two ships whose captains were able to maintain some control over their vessels during the Nore mutiny. In 1805, HMS Clyde was dismantled and rebuilt at Woolwich Dockyard; she was relaunched on 23 February 1806. She was ultimately sold in August 1814.
HMS Dolphin was 10-gun cutter that served the Royal Navy from 1793 to 1802, first as a hired armed cutter, and then after the Navy purchased her, as HMS Dolphin. During her almost decade of service Dolphin patrolled the English Channel protecting British trade by capturing French privateers and recapturing their prizes.
HMS Swallow was an 18-gun Albatross-class brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1795 and sold in 1802. During her naval career she captured a number of French privateers while on the Jamaica station. After her sale she became an armed whaler sailing under a letter of marque. As a privateer she captured two French whaling vessels but then is no longer listed after 1810.
Quatre frères was either an American or Bermudian-built vessel. She was commissioned in 1796 at Bordeaux as a French privateer. The Royal Navy captured her in April 1797 and took her into service as HMS Transfer. The Royal Navy sold her at Malta in 1802 to Ottoman Tripolitania. The U.S. Navy captured her in 1804 and took her into service as USS Scourge. The U.S. Navy sold her in 1812.
Victorieuse was a brig of the French Navy, launched at Honfleur in 1794. The British Royal Navy captured in August 1795 and took her into service as HMS Victorieuse. She captured several privateers and two forts in the Caribbean and then served briefly in the Mediterranean before she was broken up in 1807.
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.
The French brig Gironde was launched at Rochefort in 1793 as a Dédaigneuse-class gun-brig of the French Navy. In 1797 she was struck from the lists and sold. She became a privateer operating out of Bordeaux. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1800 but never commissioned her; it sold her in 1801.