HMS Actif (1794)

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British-Red-Ensign-1707.svg Great Britain
NameActive
Launchedc.1789
Captured21 May 1793
Civil and Naval Ensign of France.svg France
NameActif
Acquired21 May 1793 by capture
Captured16 March 1794
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Actif
AcquiredBy capture 1794
FateFoundered 1794
General characteristics [1]
Type sloop
Displacementc.150 tons (French) [2]
Tons burthen165, or 100 [3] (bm)
Complement
  • British privateer:40
  • Royal Navy service:60
Armament
  • British privateer:12 × 4-pounder guns + 4 × swivel guns [3]
  • French privateer: 6 to 16 guns [2]
  • Royal Navy service:10 × 4-pounder guns

HMS Actif was supposedly the British privateer Active that the French captured in 1793 and that became the French privateer Actif. Iphigenia recaptured Actif on 16 March 1794. The Royal Navy took her into service but she foundered on 26 November. All her crew were saved.

Contents

British privateer

British sources state that Active was a Liverpool privateer launched c. 1789. [1] She was under the command of Captain Stephen Bower (or Bowers), and was sailing under a letter of marque dated 2 May 1793. [3] The French frigate Sémillante captured this privateer on 21 May 1793. [4] [1] [5] At capture, Active was armed with eleven guns and three howitzers. [2]

There are problems with this story. Bowers's letter of marque describes Active as a brig of 100 tons (bm), not a sloop of 165. More critically, both Williams's account of the capture, [4] and that in Lloyd's List report that a Guernsey privateer recaptured Active and took her into Guernsey. Lloyd's List further named the re-captor as the privateer Brilliant. [6]

French service

On 16 March 1794 Iphigenia captured both Actif and Espiegle in the West Indies. [7]

Royal Navy service and loss

The Royal Navy registered Actif as a sloop on 17 July. However, already by 4 June she was on active service with the Royal Navy, participating in the capture of Port-au-Prince. [8] Commander John Harvey became her captain on 5 September. [9]

Harvey was sailing Actif to England when by 24 November she developed leaks while off Bermuda. Even with the crew working the pumps continuously, she took on so much water as her structure weakened that on the 26th she had to make distress signals. HMS St Albans came up and rescued Harvey and his crew. The rescuers left her to founder at 30°9′N76°58′W / 30.150°N 76.967°W / 30.150; -76.967 . [10]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Winfield (2008), p. 336.
  2. 1 2 3 Demerliac (2004), p. 98, n°603.
  3. 1 2 3 "Letter of Marque, p.47 - accessed 25 July 2017" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  4. 1 2 Williams (1897), p. 314.
  5. ↑ Winfield & Roberts (2015), p. 336.
  6. ↑ "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 2516. 14 June 1793. hdl:2027/uc1.c3049067 . Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  7. ↑ Norie (1842), p. 406.
  8. ↑ "No. 15133". The London Gazette . 14 May 1799. p. 465.
  9. ↑ Leslie (1891), p. 91, Vol. 25..
  10. ↑ Hepper (1994), p. 77.

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References

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