Career
Lieutenant Thomas Eyre Hinton commissioned Attack in February 1795. In 1795 she served in Sir Sidney Smith's inshore squadron.
HMS Diamond, Syren, Sybille, Childers, and the gun-brigs Fearless and Attack shared in the proceeds of the capture on 6 July 1795 of the Latitia. [2]
Between July and October 1796 Attack was at Portsmouth being coppered and receiving sliding keels.
Lieutenant Joseph James took command in 1798.Attack spent 1799 escorting convoys in the Channel. In April she recaptured William, Rowell, master, which had been sailing from Newry to London when a French privateer had captured her. [3]
On 14 August 1800, Attack sent into Plymouth Christian, Odding, master, which had been sailing from Bordeaux to Hamburg. [4]
HMS Turbulent was a Confounder-class 12-gun gun-brig in the Royal Navy. She was the first ship to bear this name. Built at Dartmouth, Devon by Tanner, she was launched on 17 July 1805. The Danes captured her in 1808. She was sold in 1814.
HMS Andromeda was a 32-gun Hermione-class fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was laid down in 1781 and launched in 1784. She was commissioned for the first time in 1788 when Captain Prince William Henry took command of her and sailed for the West Indies. Prince William Henry paid her off in 1789 and she was not commissioned again until 1790 in response to the Spanish Armament. In 1792 Andromeda joined the Royal Navy's Evolution Squadron in the English Channel before sailing for the Leeward Islands where she stayed until the end of 1793 when Captain Lord Northesk brought her home. She was refitted for much of 1794 before in September joining the Downs Station. Captain William Taylor assumed command in 1795, briefly sailing her to Newfoundland before returning to the North Sea Fleet in 1796. She stayed here for 3 years, seizing the 36-gun Batavian frigate Zefir in the Firth of Forth in March 1798 and participating in the Raid on Dunkirk in July 1800. After another period of service in the Leeward Islands Andromeda returned home at the Peace of Amiens and was laid up at Portsmouth Dockyard where she was broken up in September 1811.
Robert was a 16-gun French privateer corvette launched in 1793 at Nantes. The British captured her in 1793 and named her HMS Espion. The French recaptured her in 1794 and took her into service as Espion. The British recaptured her in 1795, but there being another Espion in service by then, the British renamed their capture HMS Spy. She served under that name until the Navy sold her in 1801. Spy then became a slave ship, a merchantman to South America, and privateer again. The French captured her in mid-1805 and sent her into Guadeloupe.
HMS Selby was the mercantile Selby built in 1791 at Whitby. She was a North Sea and Baltic trader until the British Royal Navy purchased her in 1798. Selby's purchase was one of a number of purchases of armed ships or ship-sloops where the Navy's intent was to use them as convoy escorts. Selby was at the raid on Dunkirk, though she played no real role. The Navy sold her in 1801. She then returned to being a merchantman. She was probably wrecked in February 1807, but was still listed until 1810, trading between London and Jamaica.
HMS Sparkler was an Acute-class gunvessel launched in 1797 as GB No.7 and renamed HMS Sparkler in August 1797. She served the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Navy sold her in 1802. She became a merchantman. In 1813 a French privateer captured her but the Royal Navy recaptured her shortly thereafter. She was wrecked in February 1814.
Courageaux was commissioned in Bordeaux in 1798. She made two cruises as a privateer before HMS Alcmene captured her in 1799. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Lutine. She had a brief operational life in the Royal Navy, serving primarily as a prison ship. At the end of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1802 the Royal Navy sold her in the Mediterranean.
The Royal Navy purchased HMS Barracouta on the stocks in 1782. After she had served for almost ten years patrolling against smugglers, the Navy sold her in 1792. She became the privateer Thought, which had a successful cruize, capturing several prizes including a French privateer, but then was herself captured in September 1793. She served the French Navy under the names Pensée, Montagne, Pensée, and Vedette, until the British recaptured her in 1800 and renamed her HMS Vidette. The Royal Navy sold her in 1802.
HMS Argus was launched in 1798 at Bordeaux as Argus. She became a privateer that the British Royal Navy (RN) captured in 1799. She served from April 1803 until she was broken up in April 1811.
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.
Fowey was launched in 1798. She spent a little more than a year-and-a-half as a hired armed cutter for the British Royal Navy. She was sold in 1800 and became a privateer. Her fate after 1804 is currently obscure.
HMS Thrasher was launched in 1804 at Brightlingsea, or Colchester as the merchant vessel Adamant. The British Royal Navy purchased her in June 1804, renamed her, and fitted her out as a gunbrig. She captured numerous small merchant vessels, most of them Dutch or Danish. After the Navy sold her in 1814, she returned to mercantile service under her original name of Adamant. She made a voyage to Malta in 1815 and was wrecked as she was returning to London.
HMS Pluto was a 14-gun fire ship of the Royal Navy launched in 1782. Pluto was converted to a sloop in 1793. She spent the period of the French Revolutionary Wars on the Newfoundland station where she captured a French naval vessel. During the Napoleonic Wars Pluto was stationed in the Channel. There she detained numerous merchant vessels trading with France or elsewhere. Pluto was laid up in 1809 and sold in 1817 into mercantile service. The mercantile Pluto ran aground near Margate on 31 August 1817 and filled with water.
Lutin was a Hasard-class brig-aviso launched at Bayonne in 1788 for the French Navy. Shortly after the outbreak of war with England, the British Royal Navy captured her off Newfoundland. The British took her into service as HMS Lutin. After some two years on the Newfoundland station Lutin sailed to Plymouth where the Navy sold her.
Dick was a French vessel built in Spain, almost certainly sailing under another name, that the British captured circa 1798. She made a voyage to the West Indies during which she repelled two attacks, and captured three prizes. She then became a slave ship that made three slave-trading voyages. Her first voyage was cut short when a French privateer captured her and the Royal Navy recaptured her. She then made two complete voyages. After her return in 1803 from her third voyage she became a West Indiaman. She grounded in 1804 after another vessel had run into her. She was last listed in 1809.
Mon Oncle Thomas was a three-masted privateer from La Rochelle. She was possibly the former Spanish Rosa, of 300 to 350 tonnes, captured in 1793. From at least 1799 on she made four cruises as a privateer. She participated in the short-lived recapture of the island of Gorée from the British. She made several highly profitable captures and engaged in at least one successful single-ship action. The British Royal Navy captured her in late 1804.
HMS Bustler was the mercantile Shillelagh, which the Admiralty purchased in January 1782. She was sold in 1788 and returned to mercantile service. In 1793 she became a privateer and made one notable capture. She then became a West Indiaman that the French captured in 1795.
HMS Dart was an 8-gun lugger, reportedly previously the British privateer Dart, built in 1796, captured by the French in 1798, recaptured from the French in 1803, and sold in 1808.
Battalion was launched at Whitby in 1795. She traded with the Baltic and then in 1796 became a Liverpool-based West Indiaman. A French privateer captured her in 1797 as she was outbound on her first voyage to Jamaica. The Royal Navy quickly recaptured her. She was last listed in Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1797.
HMS Dexterous was a later Archer-class gunbrig launched at Buckler's Hard in 1805. Between 1805 and 1807, Dexterous was operating out of Gibraltar, where she captured two small armed vessels, one naval and one a privateer. Thereafter Dexterous operated in the Channel, where she recaptured several British merchant vessels that French privateers had captured. The Navy sold Dexterous in 1816.
HMS Zephyr was a 14-gun Crocus-class brig of the Royal Navy built by Nicholas Diddams at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched there in 1809. During her service she captured two armed vessels. The Navy sold her in 1818 for breaking up.
Great Britain