Atalante was a brig built at Bayonne between 1793 and 1794 to a design by Raymond-Antoine Haran. She was launched in January 1794 as the only ship built to her design.[2]
Between 28 January 1794 and 9 October, Atalante was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Soustra. She sailed from Bayonne to Brest, before cruising in the vicinity of the Azores and then returning to Brest.[3]
Atalante participated in the Croisière du Grand Hiver, an unsuccessful sortie by the French fleet at Brest on 24 December 1794. She then returned to Bayonne, and later Brest.[4]
By 13 October 1795, she was at Concarneau and under the command of enseigne de vaisseau Dordelin.[5]
HMSPhoebe captured Atalante on 10 January 1797 off the Scilly Isles. At capture she was under the command of now lieutenant de vaisseaux Dordelin,[6] and had a crew of 112 men. Her captors reported that she was a three-year-old brig with a coppered hull and an 80-foot keel.[7] The British took her back to Portsmouth. She was registered there before being sent on to Plymouth, where the Navy had her fitted out between June and September 1798.[1]
French Revolutionary Wars
Atalante was commissioned under Commander Digby Dent in July 1798, but was paid off in October that year.[1] Recommissioned in December, this time under Commander Anselm Griffiths, she went on to have a particularly successful career against French privateers.
On 20 February 1799, she and Boadicea captured the French privateer cutterMilan. Milan was armed with 14 guns and had a crew of 44 men. Atalante took the prize into port.[8]
On 4 December, Atalante captured the privateer luggerSuccès (or Success). Atalante came upon a lugger in the act of capturing a brig, and immediately set off in pursuit. The privateer abandoned her prize and tried to escape. About three hours later, Atalante dropped off her master in her jolly boat to recapture the brig, and continued the pursuit without stopping. After a pursuit of about 11 hours, Atalante finally caught up with and captured the privateer. Succès was armed with six guns and had a crew of 48 men under the command of Francois Matthieu Blondin. She was six days out of Boulogne and the interrupted capture was her first prize. The master, Edward Lewington, and crew of the prize were aboard Succès and they reported that they had been sailing from London to Belfast when the privateer had captured them the night before west of Dungeness.[9]
On 29 January 1801, Atalante captured and destroyed the Spanish privateer Intrepido Cid. Sirius and Amethyst shared, by agreement, in the bounty-money.[10]
On 26 February 1801, she sent into Plymouth the Bon Aventura, which had been sailing from St Ullus to Limerick when the French privateer Grande Decide, of 18 guns, had captured her. Atalante had recaptured Bon Avenura.[11]
On 1 April 1801, Atalante was in company with Viper when they encountered four French privateers off Land's End. Three of the privateers escaped. Nevertheless, Atalante pursued one and after a chase of 17 hours captured her. She turned out to be the brig Héros, of Saint Malo. She was armed with 14 guns and had a crew of 73 men under the command of her master, Renne Crosse.[12]
On 10 August 1801, Atalante's cutter, manned by eight men, captured the 58-ton lugger Eveillé in Quiberon Bay. The lugger was armed with two 4-pounder guns and four 1½-pounder swivel guns. As the cutter approached, the lugger fired on the cutter, as did some small shore batteries. The lugger was within small-arms range of the shore and as the crew of the cutter boarded the lugger, the lugger's crew abandoned her. The British suffered no casualties. Captain A.J. Griffiths made no mention of signs of French casualties and described the lugger as being in the "Service of the Republic". At about the same time, Atalante also captured three light boats.[13]
On 24 August 1801, a prize to Atalante, a French dogger with a cargo of wines and brandies, came into Plymouth.[14]
Griffiths was succeeded in May 1802 by Commander Joseph Masefield, who operated out of Portland.[1] On 13 June 1802, Masefield sailed Atalante on an anti-smuggling patrol.[15] On 1 October 1802, he sent in to Portsmouth a large smuggling vessel with 360 casks of spirits and 20 bales of tobacco. Then the next week, he sent in a lugger with 170 ankers of spirits, a sloop with 120, and a large boat with 400.[16] On 14 October 1802, he brought into Plymouth the 80-ton Admiral Pole, of Exeter, which Atalante caught after a long chase.[17] She too had been carrying 170 ankers of spirits. Admiral Pole had been captured some months earlier at Weymouth and then released after posting bond with the Board of Customs and Excise.[18]
Napoleonic Wars
When Masefield (or Mansfield) recommissioned Atalante on 10 January 1803, two days after paying her off, he apparently did not want for crew. His success on anti-smuggling patrol had apparently resulted in his previous crew earning prize money the equivalent of their pay for the six-month period. Masefield had captured eight smuggling vessels and seized 1,000 ankers of spirits, in addition to bale goods.[19]
On 14 March 1803, Atalante sailed from Plymouth to retrieve the sloop Galgo from Mount's Bay, where she had taken refuge, having been dismasted in a gale. Atalante returned the next day with Galgo.[20] That same day Atalante and Nemesis sailed under sealed orders to Cawsand Bay where they received further orders that sent them to Bristol to impress seamen.[21] On 13 May 1803, Nemesis and Atalante returned to Plymouth from a cruise that had them monitoring French naval movements off Brest.[22] On 16 June 1803, a French brig, prize to Atalante came into Plymouth.[23]
On 7 June 1803, Atlante captured the merchant ship Ocean.[24] Then one month later, on 8 July 1803, Atalante captured the French ship Prudent.[25] Then on 24 September 1803, Atalante captured four French merchant vessels. These were the Jeune Adelphie, Marie Elizabeth, Betzée, and Fortunée.[26]
On 9 October 1803, Atalante pursued two ketches and a brig at Saint Gildas Point. The quarry ran ashore near the mouth of the Pennerf river. Mansfield then sent in his boats on a cutting out expedition. One boat captured one of the ketches but couldn't bring her off; while they were so engaged they endured fire from soldiers on board the other ketch and troops with two field guns on the beach. The boarding party then abandoned their vessel and went to the assistance of the party that had boarded the brig. That party had killed six of the 10 or 12 soldiers on the brig, thrown two over board, and driven the rest and the crew below decks. The boarding party was unable to get the brig off the shore so they abandoned her without setting her on fire in consideration of the men below decks. Atalante lost one man killed and two wounded in the operation. The next day, Masefield was pleased to see that the brig was on a ridge of rocks and "apparently bilged".[27]
That same day, i.e., 9 October, there came into Plymouth a large lugger with brandy, wine, and Castile soup that Atalante's boats had cut out near Brest. The three timber vessels they cut out at the same time turn out more valuable than had initially been expected because their cargo turned out to be timber of different scantlings for first and second rates. The timber vessels had been sailing to 1'Orient, where several ships were building.[28]
On 24 March 1804, Atalante captured the French chasse mareeVolante.[29]Volante from Nantes, arrived at Plymouth in early April.[30]
In July 1805, Atalante captured the Belissaire and the Napoleon, carrying brandy and rosin, and sent them into Plymouth.[31]
On 20 May 1806, Atalante captured the Fortuna Waggona.[32]Atalante was also in sight when Iris captured the French ketch Amis de Juste.[33] That same month Atalante captured the Noord Termans, Wagener, master, as she was sailing from St. Martin's to Bremen. Atalante sent her into Plymouth.[34]
Atalante was assigned to the squadron under Sir Samuel Hood on 25 September 1806. On 19 October 1806, Indefatigable, Hazard and Atalante captured the chasse marees Achille, Jenny and Marianne.[35]
In 1807, Lieutenant John Bowker took over command in an acting capacity.[1] When he took command, Bowker requested that Atalante be surveyed. He noted that when the wind blew fresh, water would enter at a rate of 20 inches per hour. He was refused. Later, Sir Samuel Hood testified in Parliament that Commander Keats had assured him that Atalante was seaworthy.[36] Bowker's time in command was short-lived.
Fate
On 12 February 1807, Atalante was wrecked off the Île de Ré, near Rochefort. She had been cruising to watch enemy vessels in Rochefort when she hit the Grande Blanche rock at 10 pm. Despite attempts to lighten her that included cutting away her masts, she continued to founder. At daybreak, three British vessels approached and took off the crew, enduring fire from shore batteries as they did so. The first was the cutterNile, followed later by the frigates Penelope and Pomone. During the night, some of the crewmen took two of Atalante's boats without permission. The cutter, with 22 men, reached shore, where the French took them prisoner. The jolly boat, with the gunner and six men, headed out to sea where a ship from the British blockading squadron picked them up. The gunner, John Brockman, had been officer of the watch when Atalante had struck. He had ignored Lieutenant Bowker's order not to take her into shallow water and had ignored the advice of the French pilot, M. Legall, who was on board in an advisory capacity. That Brockman had left without permission during the night further undermined his case at the court martial for the loss of the ship. The board ordered Brockman disrated.[37]
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 Boadicea was a frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the Channel and in the East Indies during which service she captured many prizes. She participated in one action for which the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1858.
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 to warrant being taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.
HMS Amethyst was a Royal Navy 36-gun Penelope-class fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1799 at Deptford. Amethyst served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing several prizes. She also participated in two boat actions and two ship actions that won her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1811 after suffering severe damage in a storm.
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 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.
The hired armed cutter Black Joke was a cutter that served the Royal Navy from 12 January 1795 to 19 October 1801. In 1799 she was renamed Suworow, and under that name she captured numerous prizes before she was paid off after the Treaty of Amiens.
HMS Nemesis was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The French captured her in 1795 at Smyrna, but in 1796 a squadron led by Barfleur brought her out of the neutral port of Tunis. Throughout her career she served under a number of commanders who would go on to have distinguished careers. She was converted to a troopship in 1812 and was sold in 1814.
HMS Moucheron was a French privateer, built in 1799, that the British captured in 1801. The British government purchased her in 1802 for the Royal Navy. She foundered in 1807 in the Mediterranean without leaving a trace.
HMS Sprightly was a 10-gun cutter of the Royal Navy, built to a design by John Williams, and the name ship of her two-vessel class of cutters. She was launched in 1778. The French captured and scuttled her off the Andulasian coast in 1801.
HMS Racoon was a brig-sloop built and launched in 1795. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars and in the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. She had an active career under several captains, working essentially independently while capturing or destroying some 20 enemy privateers and naval vessels. Several of the captures involved engagements that resulted in casualties on Racoon as well as on her opponents. She was broken up early in 1806.
HMS Greyhound was a cutter that the British Admiralty purchased in 1780 and renamed Viper in 1781. Viper captured several French privateers in the waters around Great Britain, and took part in a notable engagement. She was sold in October 1809.
The French lugger Affronteur was launched in 1795 and in 1796-7 participated in the Expédition d'Irlande. In 1803, HMS Doris captured her and she subsequently served the Royal Navy either as a commissioned vessel or, more probably, as His Majesty's hired armed brig Caroline. In 1807 she was either broken up, or became a letter of marque.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy employed at least two cutters designated His Majesty's hired armedcutterNile.
HMS Childers was a brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy, initially armed with 10 carriage guns which were later increased to 14 guns. The first brig-sloop to be built for the Navy, she was ordered from a commercial builder during the early years of the American War of Independence, and went on to support operations in the English Channel and the Caribbean. Laid up for a time after the end of the American War of Independence, she returned to service shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. She had an active career in both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing numerous French privateers and during the Gunboat War participated in a noteworthy single-ship action. The navy withdrew her from service at the beginning of 1811, at which time she was broken up.
Two vessels have borne the designation, His Majesty's hired armed cutter Constitution. The first served the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. The second served briefly at the start of the Napoleonic Wars and was sunk in 1804. The two cutters are similar enough that may have been the same vessel; at this juncture it is impossible to know.
HMS Milbrook was one of six vessels built to an experimental design by Sir Samuel Bentham. After the Royal Navy took her into service in her decade-long career she took part in one notable single-ship action and captured several privateers and other vessels, all off the coast of Spain and Portugal. She was wrecked off the coast of Portugal in 1808.
Brave, launched at Le Havre in 1793, was the name vessel of a two-vessel class of brig-rigged canonnières, i.e., gun-brigs. The French Navy renamed her Arrogante in May 1795. The Royal Navy captured her on 23 or 24 April 1798. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Arrogante, but renamed her HMS Insolent some four months later. She was sold in June 1818.
The French brig Suffisante was launched in 1793 for the French Navy. In 1795 the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service under her existing name. HMS Suffisante captured seven privateers during her career, as well as recapturing some British merchantmen and capturing a number of prizes, some of them valuable. She was lost in December 1803 when she grounded in poor weather in Cork harbour.
His Majesty's hired armed schooner Lady Charlotte served the British Royal Navy on contract between 28 October 1799 and 28 October 1801. She had a burthen of 120 85⁄94 tons (bm), and was armed with twelve 12-pounder carronades. As a hired armed vessel she captured several privateers and recaptured a number of British merchant vessels. After her service with the Royal Navy, she apparently sailed as a letter of marque until the French captured her in 1806.
Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras. London: Chatham. ISBN1861760302.
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN0-948864-30-3.
Russell, William Clark (1887) A book for the hammock. (Chatto and Windus).
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S. (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-84832-204-2.
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