Loire took part in the Expédition d'Irlande, and in the Battle of Tory Island, where she battled Kangaroo, Robust, and Anson. After the battle, Loire and Sémillante escaped into Black Cod Bay, where they hoped to hide until they had a clear passage back to France. However, late on 15 October, a British frigate squadron under James Newman Newman rounded the southern headland of the bay, forcing the French ships to flee to the north.[3] Pressing on sail in pursuit, Newman ordered Révolutionaire to focus on Sémillante whilst he pursued Loire in Mermaid, accompanied by the brig Kangaroo under Commander Edward Brace. Loire and Sémillante separated to divide their pursuers; Mermaid and Kangaroo lost track of Loire in the early evening, and Sémillante evaded Révolutionaire after dark. Mermaid and Kangaroo eventually found Loire on 17 October, but after an inconclusive fight that left the British unable to pursue, Loire broke off the engagement and escaped. The next day Loire again engaged Kangaroo and Anson, and was forced to strike after she ran out of ammunition. Out of the 664 men, including three artillery regiments and their Etat-Major, carried on board Loire, 48 were killed and 75 wounded. She was also found to be carrying a large store of clothing, weapons, ammunition and tools for her troops' intended operations.[4]Anson had two men killed and 13 wounded, while the Kangaroo appears to have suffered no casualties.[1]
On 27 June 1803 Loire's boats captured the French navy brig Venteux while she was anchored close to shore batteries on the Île de Batz. Venteux had a crew of 82 men under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Gilles-François Montfort and was armed with four 18-pounder guns and six 36-pounder brass carronades. Loire lost her boatswain and five men badly wounded; the French lost their second captain and two men killed, and all five remaining officers, including Montfort, wounded, as well as eight other men wounded.[5] The Royal Navy brought Venteux into service as Eagle, and next year renamed her HMSEclipse.[6]Lloyd's Patriotic Fund awarded both Lieutenant Francis Temple and Lieutenant James Bowen, who had commanded the boats that had put men on board Venteux an honour sword worth 50guineas, and Midshipman John Priest, whose boat did not arrive in time, an honour sword worth 30 guineas. In 1847 the Admiralty recognized the action with the clasp "27 June Boat Service 1803" to the Naval General Service Medal, awarded to all surviving claimants from the action. T
On 17 March 1804 Loire sighted a strange vessel on the Irish station and made all sail in pursuit. She came up with and captured what proved to be the French privateer Braave, of sixteen 12 and 6-pounder guns and 110 men. She had left L'Orient three weeks earlier but had made no captures.[7]
On 16 August 1804 Loire gave chase to a suspicious-looking sail. After a chase of 20 hours, including a running fight of a quarter of an hour, during which the British had one midshipman and five men wounded, and the French lost two men killed and five wounded, the latter hauled down her colours. She proved to be French privateer Blonde, of Bordeaux, mounting 30 guns, eight-pounders on the main deck, with a crew of 240 men under François Aregnaudeau; the same ship that, about five months earlier, had captured the Wolverine.[8]Loire took the prize in tow to Plymouth where the prisoners were disembarked on 31 August.
On 2 June 1805 boats from Loire captured the Spanish privateer feluccaEsperanza (alias San Pedro), in the Bay of Camarinas, east of Cape Finisterre. She was armed with three eighteen-pounders, four four-pounder brass swivels and a crew of 50 men. Loire had only three men slightly wounded. The captured Spanish crew had lost 19 of their 50 men, mostly killed by pike and sword; some however had jumped overboard.[9]
HMS Loire attacks Muros Fort, 4 June 1805, an aquatint by Thomas Buttersworth
On 4 June 1805 Loire made an attack on Muros. Two French privateer vessels were discovered lying in the bay, one of them being Confiance, pierced for 26 guns, 12 and 9-pounders, although not having them on board. A landing party of 50 men from Loire under first lieutenant James Lucas Yeo stormed the town's fort, which was firing its twelve 18-pounder guns at Loire. The landing party killed the fort's commander and many of the defenders, including some crew members from the privateers, and forced the remainder to surrender. Yeo hoisted the British colours, spiked the guns, and rendered the carriages unserviceable. Loire had six men slightly wounded in the shore party (including Yeo), with a further nine injured on the ship, one dangerously so. The Royal Navy took Confiance into service under Yeo's command.[10] Maitland deemed the second vessel, the brig Belier, pierced for twenty 18-pounder carronades, too unseaworthy to carry away and so burnt her. The action led to promotion to Commander for Lieutenant Yeo. Lloyd's Patriotic Fund awarded a sword worth 150 guineas to Maitland, and two swords, each worth 50 guineas, to lieutenants Yeo and Mallock.[11] In 1847 the Admiralty awarded Naval General Service Medal with clasp "4 June Boat Service 1805" to the surviving claimants from the action.
On 25 June Loire had been chasing a French frigate privateer for some twelve hours when Melampus and Brilliant came up and cut-off the quarry, forcing her to surrender. She was the Valiant (or Vaillant), of Bordeaux. She was armed with twenty-four 18-pounder guns on her main deck and six 6-pounders, which she threw overboard while Loire was pursuing her. She had a crew of 240 men. She had been out for 20 days on a four-month cruise but had only captured the Halifax packet Lord Charles Spencer.[12] The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Barbette.
On 24 December off Rochefort, Loire and Egyptienne captured the 40-gun Libre, Capitaine de Frégate Deschorches commanding.[13]Libre was armed with twenty-four 18-pounders, six 36-pounder carronades and ten 9-pounder guns. In the fight, which lasted half an hour, the French lost 20 men killed and wounded out of a crew of 280 men. Loire had no casualties but Egyptienne had 8 wounded, one mortally.[13]Libre was badly damaged and had lost her masts so Loire took her in tow and reached Plymouth with her on 4 January 1806. Libre had sailed from Flushing on 14 November in company with a French 48-gun frigate but the two vessels had parted in a gale on 9 November off the coast of Scotland.[13] The Admiralty did not purchase Libre into service.
On 22 April 1806, Loire captured the Spanish privateer Princess of Peace, 14 guns, 23 men. Loire was paid off at Deptford in October 1806.
In early 1808, while under command of Alexander Wilmot Schomberg, Loire and the frigate HMSSuccess (Captain John Ayscough), sailed to Greenland on fishery protection duties, venturing as far as 77° 30' North.
On 4 December 1813 Ramillies and Loire recaptured the whalerPolicy, J.Bowman, master, which the United States Navy had captured in the South Pacific. Her captors sent Policy into Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On 10 December, Loire, commanded by Thomas Smith, captured the Baltimore privateer Rolla, of five guns and 80 men, and less than a day out of port.[16] On 18 February 1814, Loire encountered USSPresident off New York. Loire escaped once she realized President was a 44-gun frigate.[17][18]Loire was part of the squadron patrolling the Chesapeake,[19] joining Rear Admiral George Cockburn on 28 April 1814.[20]
Cockburn's Chesapeake squadron, consisting of Albion, Dragon, Loire, Jasseur, and the schooner St Lawrence, took part in a series of raids. After the British failed to destroy the American Chesapeake Bay Flotilla at the Battle of St. Jerome Creek, they conducted a number of coastal raids on the towns of Calverton, Huntingtown, Prince Frederick, Benedict, and Lower Marlborough.[21] On 15 June 1814, a force of 30 Colonial Marines accompanied 180 Royal Marines, all in 12 boats, in a raid on Benedict.[22][23] Nine days later, on 24 June, a force of 50 Colonial and 180 Royal Marines attacked an artillery battery at Chesconessex Creek, although this proved unsuccessful in preventing the escape of the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, which departed from St. Leonard's Creek two days later.[21][24] Five Royal Marine casualties, from the ship's detachment, were suffered during June 1814.[25][26]
On 7 July, Loire and Severn were ordered to cruise the upper Chesapeake, to harass American boats in general, and to attack a steamboat in particular.[27] Although the steamboat was not intercepted, Loire returned on 14 July with ten prizes in tow.[28] The arrival on 19 July of a battalion of Royal Marines, which had left Bermuda on 30 June, enabled the squadron to mount further expeditions ashore.[29] On the morning of 19 July, the battalion landed near Leonardtown and advanced in concert with ships of the squadron, causing the US forces to withdraw. The battalion was deployed to the south of the Potomac, moving down to Nomini.[30] The battalion subsequently landed at St Clements Bay on 23 July,[31]Machodoc creek on 26 July, and Chaptico, Maryland on 30 July.[32] The first week of August was spent raiding the entrance to the Yeocomico River, which concluded with the capture of four schooners at the town of Kinsale, Virginia. Further casualties were suffered in an engagement on 3 August 1814.[33]
Loire sailed to Halifax, arriving on 24 October 1814. She departed Halifax as part of a convoy and arrived in Plymouth on 12 December 1814.[34]
Fate
On 14 October 1817 the Navy Commissioners gave notice in the London Gazette that the Loire (among other ships), then lying at Plymouth, would be offered for sale at their offices from the 30th.[35] She was eventually broken up in April 1818.
↑ Marshall, p729: "Captain Barrie commends, in high terms, the conduct of all the officers, seamen, and marines, under his orders, as well as that of the colonial corps, composed of armed blacks."
↑ Crawford (ed), p121, quoting a letter from Captain Brown to Rear Admiral Cockburn dated 23 June 1814: 'the Party were attacked by several hundred Infantry and Cavalry with four field Pieces, a Serjeant, four Marines and one Seaman, retreating to the Boats, were cut off'
↑ Crawford (ed), pp163-6, quoting a letter from Rear Admiral Cockburn to Vice Admiral Cochrane dated 21 July 1814. UK National Archives reference ADM 1/507 folios 103-6
↑ Crawford (ed), p166, quoting a letter from Rear Admiral Cockburn to Vice Admiral Cochrane dated 24 July 1814. UK National Archives reference ADM 1/507 folio 108
↑ Crawford (ed), pp168, quoting a letter from Rear Admiral Cockburn to Vice Admiral Cochrane dated 31 July 1814. UK National Archives reference ADM 1/507 folios 110-11
↑ Crawford (ed), p170, "A Return of Killed and Wounded in Yocomoco River the 3rd August 1814" mentions one seaman killed and two badly wounded. Archive reference ADM 1/507 Folio 116
HMS Sceptre was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, built by Dudman of Deptford after a design by Sir William Rule, and launched in December 1802 at Deptford. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 before being broken up in 1821.
Sir James Lucas Yeo,, was a British naval commander who served in the War of 1812. Born in Southampton, he joined the Royal Navy at the age of 10 and saw his first action in the Adriatic Sea. He distinguished himself in combat multiple times, most notably during the Portuguese conquest of French Guiana, earning knighthoods in the Portuguese Order of Aviz and the British Order of the Bath. He was given command of the frigate Southampton, in 1812, but his ship was wrecked in the Bahamas although he was acquitted of blame for its loss. Yeo was then given command of the squadron on Lake Ontario and commanded it during several engagements with the Americans.
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.
HMS Fantome was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally a French privateer brig named Fantôme, which the British captured in 1810 and commissioned into British service. Fantome saw extensive action in the War of 1812 until she was lost in a shipwreck at Prospect, Nova Scotia, near Halifax in 1814.
HMS Apollo, the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a fifth-rate frigate of the Lively class, carrying 38 guns, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1856.
HMS Dragon was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 April 1798 at Rotherhithe. She was designed by Sir William Rule, and was the only ship built to her draught.
Révolutionnaire, was a 40-gun Seine-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in May 1794. The British captured her in October 1794 and she went on to serve with the Royal Navy until she was broken up in 1822. During this service Revolutionnaire took part in numerous actions, including three for which the Admiralty would in 1847 award clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, and captured several privateers and merchant vessels.
Proserpine was a 38-gun Hébé-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1785 that HMS Dryad captured on 13 June 1796. The Admiralty commissioned Proserpine into the Royal Navy as the fifth rate, HMS Amelia. She spent 20 years in the Royal Navy, participating in numerous actions in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing a number of prizes, and serving on anti-smuggling and anti-slavery patrols. Her most notable action was her intense and bloody, but inconclusive, fight in 1813 with the French frigate Aréthuse. Amelia was broken up in December 1816.
The Sémillante was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was involved in a number of multi-vessel actions against the Royal Navy, particularly in the Indian Ocean. She captured a number of East Indiamen before she became so damaged that the French disarmed her and turned her into a merchant vessel. The British captured her and broke her up in 1809.
HMS Cerberus was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars in the Channel, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and even briefly in the Baltic against the Russians. She participated in one boat action that won for her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She also captured many privateers and merchant vessels. Her biggest battle was the Battle of Lissa, which won for her crew another clasp to the NGSM. She was sold in 1814.
HMS Belle Poule was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate, formerly Belle Poule, a Virginie-class frigate of the French Navy that had been built by the Crucy family's shipyard at Basse-Indre to a design by Jacques-Noël Sané. She was launched on 17 April 1802, and saw active service in the East. In 1806 a British squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren captured her off La Palma in the Canary Islands. The Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as HMS Belle Poule. She was sold in 1816.
HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Niemen was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate. She began her career as the Niémen, a 44-gun French Navy Armide-class frigate, designed by Pierre Rolland. She was only in French service for a few months when in 1809 she encountered some British frigates. The British captured her and she continued in British service as Niemen. In British service she cruised in the Atlantic and North American waters, taking numerous small American prizes, some privateers but mostly merchantmen. She was broken up in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.
Furieuse was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1809 and took her into service as the fifth rate HMS Furieuse. She spent most of her British career in the Mediterranean Sea, though towards the end of the War of 1812 she served briefly on the North American station. She was laid up in 1815 and sold for breaking up in 1816.
Minerve was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She operated in the Mediterranean during the French Revolutionary Wars. Her crew scuttled her at Saint-Florent to avoid capture when the British invaded Corsica in 1794, but the British managed to raise her and recommissioned her in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS St Fiorenzo.
HMS Terpsichore was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the last years of the American War of Independence, but did not see action until the French Revolutionary Wars. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in a career that spanned forty-five years.
Vice Admiral Charles Bayne Hodgson Ross was a Royal Navy officer who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, who later commanded the ship that took Napoleon Bonaparte into his finale exile on St Helena, and who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station.
HMS Kangaroo was British Royal Navy 18-gun brig-sloop of the Diligence class, launched in 1795 at Deptford, England. She served in Home Waters and the Mediterranean Sea until she was sold in 1802.
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 Indiaman Kent. 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.
HMS Elizabeth was a French privateer schooner that the Royal Navy captured in 1805 and took into service under her existing name. She participated in an engagement and a campaign that earned her crews clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was lost with all hands in 1814 when she capsized in the West Indies.
References
Crawford, Michael J. (Ed) (2002). The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 3. Washington: United States Department of Defense. ISBN9780160512247
Heidler, David Stephen & Jeanne T. (2004). Encyclopedia of the War of 1812. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-59114-362-4
Lambert, Andrew (2012). The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN0-571-27319-X
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).
Marshall, John (1825). Royal Naval Biography. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. OCLC8717325
Quintin, Danielle; Quintin, Bernard (2003). Dictionnaire des capitaines de Vaisseau de Napoléon (in French). S.P.M. ISBN2-901952-42-9. OCLC165892922.
Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours. Vol.1. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC165892922. (1671-1870)
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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