Though she served during the Napoleonic Wars, she appears to have missed any combat whatsoever and to have taken few prizes in that conflict. However, in the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom she captured Beaver and Warren in the Gulf of Mexico, but Warren was wrecked on Grand Gosier Island, near New Orleans, in a hurricane. Brazen suffered severe damage in the hurricane and, after local repair, was recalled to England for a survey.
After the survey she escorted convoys to Canada and back and recaptured Daphne. She then carried the Duke of Brunswick to Holland and patrolled the Irish Sea until her return to the West Indies Station. In 1815, she carried the news of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, to British troops that had captured Fort Bowyer and assisted in carrying them to England. After the war she took part in surveys of the Venezuelan coast and patrolled the Gulf of Mexico, capturing several prizes.
In the 1820s she served with the West Africa Squadron working to suppress the slave trade. In this service she captured numerous slavers and liberated over 2,000 slaves. Brazen ended her career as a floating chapel and was broken up in 1848.
The War of 1812
She was commissioned by Commander Lewis Shepard in July 1808 for the Jamaica station.[1] She was built in Portsmouth Dockyard by Nicholas Diddams.[2] Shepard was promoted to post-captain on 21 October 1810. From October 1810 she was under the command of Richard Plummer Davies, still on the Jamaica station.[1]
Between June 1812 and August 1818 she was under the command of Commander James Stirling and for most of that time served in the West Indies. Stirling joined the ship in Port Royal Harbour, Jamaica, on 29 June 1812 and on 11 July Brazen left on her first mission in the War of 1812, to harass American ports and shipping in the Gulf of Mexico.[3]
On 6 August 1812, near the Balize entrance to the Mississippi, she captured the US brig Beaver, which was sailing to Havana with a cargo of sugar and coffee.[4] She put the crew and two river pilots ashore and then a prize crew of a lieutenant and five seamen sailed Beaver to Jamaica.[5][lower-alpha 1]
On 18 August 1812 Brazen captured Warren near Horn Island, off the coast of Mississippi. However, the next day she was cast on shore and wrecked in the hurricane of 19/20 August 1812.[5]Brazen also suffered severely. Lloyd's List reported that she and the frigate Southampton had run aground and lost their masts on the coast of Mississippi, but that the crews were saved.[8] Both vessels were refloated, repaired, and returned to service. Brazen arrived at New Providence; Southampton arrived at Jamaica on 6 October.[9] Although neither vessel was lost in the hurricane, Southampton was lost about a month later when she hit an uncharted rock.
Brazen sheltered in the lee of Grand Gosier Island, the southernmost of the Chandeleur Islands, and jettisoned her three masts and her quarterdeck and forecastle guns,[lower-alpha 2] but nevertheless dragged her three anchors to within a quarter of a mile from the beach. When the hurricane had passed, she salvaged the mainmast from the wreck of Warren and limped to the (then) Spanish port of Pensacola. The Spanish authorities allowed her to land some sailors to cut timber for the masts and throughout September the crew replaced the masts and carried out other repairs. On 29 September Brazen left Pensacola to resume her patrol off the mouth of the Mississippi.[5] Stirling soon realised that the repairs had not made the ship completely seaworthy and decided to return her to Port Royal, where she arrived on 20 November. Further repairs were carried out in Jamaica, but the ship was recalled to England for a maintenance survey. She left on 19 December and arrived at Spithead on 9 February 1813, before sailing to Sheerness for the survey.[3]
After the survey she sailed on 4 June 1813 as escort for a convoy carrying stores and settlers to Churchill in Hudson Bay. The vessels were Eddystone, Prince of Wales, and Ann. On 29 June Brazen recaptured Daphne.[lower-alpha 3] She anchored off Churchill on 19 August and left again on 20 September, escorting another convoy to England via the Orkney Islands and arriving at the Downs on 25 November.[3]
On her return to England she received a commission in December to take the Duke of Brunswick to Holland. Then, between March and December 1814, she patrolled the Irish Sea and the Outer Hebrides in search of American vessels, leaving on 29 December to return to the West Indies.
Brazen arrived at Barbados early in February 1815 and received a commission to take the news of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, to Fort Bowyer, which had been captured by British forces, and to carry the British troops to Havana and then back to England.[3] Her arrival at Fort Bowyer forestalled a British attack on Mobile. Brazen left Mobile on 25 March 1815 and sailed from Havana on 4 April, returning home with General Sir John Lambert, Baynes, his Aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Harry Smith (later Lieutenant General Sir Harry Smith) and as many wounded as she could carry.[12] Smith, in his autobiography, later wrote
Sail was made amid waves mountains high, and the Brazen, as impudent a craft as ever spurned the mighty billows, so beautifully was she managed and steered, rode over or evaded seas apparently over-whelming.
On 24 September 1816 she captured Hercules[14] in Carlisle Bay, Barbados. Hercules was nicknamed "the Black Frigate" and was the flagship of the Argentinean Admiral William Brown. She was fighting on the side of the Venezuelan revolutionaries against the Spanish and had a valuable cargo of quicksilver, silks, steel, dry goods, and spice taken from Spanish towns and ships. The Governor of Barbados ordered her release, not wishing to prejudice British neutrality in that conflict. However Brazen seized her again after she left Barbados and took her to Antigua. Brown appealed and after long drawn out proceedings the High Court of Admiralty ruled in Brown's favour. Brazen received no prize money and Stirling continued to receive demands for damages for many years.[3]
Between November 1816 and January 1818, Brazen took part in surveys of the Venezuelan coast and a trading arrangement with Simon Bolivar's insurgents may have been agreed on board.[16] On 21 July 1818 she arrived in Portsmouth from Barbados, having made the voyage in 31 days.
Between December 1818 and January 1820 Brazen was at Portsmouth undergoing repairs and being fitted for sea. She was recommissioned in December 1819 under Captain William Shepheard.[1] >
In 1820 and 1821 she served at St Helena and Ascension Island before returning to England. She arrived at Portsmouth on 31 October.
In January 1823 Captain George W. Willes took command.[1] On 2 December 1824 she captured Jane and her cargo.[17] On 13 February 1825 she captured the sloop Elizabeth.[18][lower-alpha 5] On 18 March 1825 she was at Bognor, having chased on shore a tub boat and galley with cargoes of gin, tea, and tobacco.[18] Anti-smuggling patrol might not be glamorous, but it could be lucrative.[lower-alpha 6]
On 21 May she captured the French lugger Courier. The revenue cutter Wellington and a boat from Hyperion assisted Brazen.[20][lower-alpha 7] In November 1827 the Treasury gave a grant to the then crew of Brazen for smugglers captured in the year prior to 10 October 1825.[21][lower-alpha 8]
Suppressing the slave trade
By November 1825, while under the command of Willes, Brazen was serving with the West Africa Squadron. Although service with the squadron was highly dangerous because of the incidence of disease, it could be highly profitable for a successful captain such as Willes, who would in about a year make multiples of his salary in prize and head money for his capture of slavers. Although the crew received substantially less, they too roughly doubled their annual salary.
On her way out she had brought with her the British explorer Hugh Clapperton and his party. Also, on her way out, she had taken on 25 October the French schooner Éclair, out of Nantes and bound for Havana with 169 slaves aboard. Éclair had embarked the slaves at the River St Paul's near Cape Mount, but had lost a third of them in the surf during the process of embarkation.
Brazen captured the Spanish slave schooner Clara (or Clarita) on 4 November 1825, the brigantine Ninfa (or Ninfa Habanera), of 150 tons, with 231 slaves on board on 7 November 1825, and the Vogel on 22 January 1826.[22][lower-alpha 9]
On 22 January 1826 Brazen was in Sierra Leone, having sent in Malta, of Liverpool, which had dealt in slaves, and Iberia, of Havana, with 422 slaves on board. She had captured Iberia on 27 December 1825.[24][lower-alpha 10] On 15 May 1826, she seized the schooner Fortunée with 245 slaves.[26][lower-alpha 11]
On 11 June she seized San Benedicto but the British and Portuguese Mixed Commission Court at Sierra Leone ruled that the ship and her cargo were to be returned to her master. Then on 6 July she captured the Brazilian slave ship St. Benedict, fitted out for 690 slaves, but with only 25 on board. On 16 July she was at Cape Coast Castle, having recently captured the Portuguese slave schooner Fortuna, with 250 slaves on board, 45 of whom died en route for Sierra Leone. On 27 September she seized the brigantineSnelheid with 23 slaves.[22]
On 28 November she was at Badagry, having arrived from Ouidah.
In addition Brazen boarded the following vessels:
Modeste, 67 tons, of St Pierre, Martinique 269 slaves;
Constance, 27 tons, of St Pierre, Martinique;
Felix Africano, Brazilian, licensed to carry 567 slaves;
Magico, 130 tons, of Havana;
Eliza, Portuguese, 80 tons;
Bienfaisant, of Rochelle, not fully fitted;
Active, 149 tons, of Pernambuco; and
Orestes, 102 tons, Spanish.
Fate
HMS Brazen, circa 1829 fitted out as a floating church, and renamed Bethel
From May to September 1827 Brazen was fitted out at Chatham as an Anglican floating church destined for the Pool of London.[27] On 10 February 1828 she was delivered to the Committee of the Floating Church at Deptford.The Committee returned her in 1846 and she was broken up at Deptford in July 1848.[1]
Notes
↑ A first-class share of His Majesty's grant of twenty-nine thirtieths of the proceeds, of the hull and part of the cargo of the Beaver was worth £247 0s 6d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth £5 8s.[6] A first-class share of a later distribution of the proceeds from the cargo was worth £213 10s 8d; a sixth-class share was worth £4 13s 9d.[7]
↑ Although Brazen's log does not specify the number of guns thrown overboard; according to a resident of Pensacola who visited the sloop after her return from patrol, it was ten.[10]
↑ The first-class share of the salvage money, i.e., that which would accrue to Stirling, was worth £22 2s and 0d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 8s 0d.[11]
↑ A first-class share for Henry was worth £336 12s 6d; a sixth-class share was worth £8 12s 7+1⁄2d. No distribution of prize money was made to those who were on board Brazen when Hercules was seized. Their shares were reserved to meet the heavy expenses incurred and likely to arise from that case.[15]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money for Elizabeth was worth £52 16s 4d; a sixth-class share was worth 13s 2+1⁄4d.[19]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money for this capture was worth £254 3s 11+1⁄2d; a sixth-class share was worth £3 2s 9d.[19]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money was worth £58 9s 9+1⁄2d; a sixth-class share was worth 15s.[20]
↑ A first-class share was worth £64 6s 9+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth 10s 5+1⁄4d.[21]
↑ A first-class share of the head money for these captures, amounted to £518 7s 10+1⁄2d; a sixth-class share was worth £3 4s.[23]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money and the head money for the slaves was worth £1400 13s 0+3⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth £8 13s 5+1⁄4.[25]
↑ A first-class share was worth £761 15s 6+3⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth £5 1s 2+1⁄2d.[26]
HMS Belvidera was a Royal Navy 36-gun Apollo-class frigate built in Deptford in 1809. She saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 and continued a busy career at sea into the middle of the 19th century. In 1846 she was reduced to harbour service, in 1860 she became a receiving ship, and she was finally disposed of in 1906.
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HMS Circe was a Royal Navy 32-gun fifth-rate frigate, built by Master Shipwright Joseph Tucker at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched in 1804. She served in the Caribbean during the Napoleonic Wars, and participated in an action and a campaign for which in 1847 in the Admiralty authorised the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasps. The action, off the Pearl Rock, near Saint-Pierre, Martinique, was a debacle that cost Circe dearly. However, she also had some success in capturing privateers and a French brig. She was sold in 1814.
HMS Sophie was an 18-gun Cruizer class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She served during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. During the War of 1812 Sophie participated in the economic war against American trade, capturing or destroying numerous small merchant vessels, and in an unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer, Alabama. Later, she moved to the East Indies where she served in the First Anglo-Burmese War. The Admiralty sold Sophie in 1825.
HMS Sappho was a Cruizer class brig-sloop built by Jabez Bailey at Ipswich and launched in 1806. She defeated the Danish brig Admiral Yawl in a single-ship action during the Gunboat War, and then had a notably successful two months of prize-taking in the first year of the War of 1812. She was wrecked in 1825 off the Canadian coast and then broken up in 1830.
HMS Musquito. was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John Preston at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1804. She was commissioned in October 1804 under Commander Samuel Jackson. She served in the North Sea and the Baltic, and Jackson supervised the first successful rocket attack in Europe at Boulogne in 1806. After the war she served off Africa and captured some slavers. She was broken up in 1822, having been laid up since 1818.
HMS Severn was an Endymion-class frigate of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1813 as one of five heavy frigates built to match the powerful American frigates. The shortage of oak meant that she was built of "fir", which meant a considerably shortened lifespan. Nonetheless, the ship saw useful service, especially at the bombardment of Algiers in 1816, before being broken up in 1825.
HMS Grasshopper was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop built at Portsmouth Dockyard by Nicholas Diddams and launched in 1813. She was the second ship of the class to bear the name; the first Grasshopper had been stranded at Texel and surrendered to the Batavian Republic on Christmas Day 1811. The present Grasshopper remained in service until sold in 1832. She then became a whaler in the Southern Whale Fisheries, making four voyages between 1832 and 1847.
HMS Comus was a 22-gun Laurel-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1806. In 1807 she took part in one notable single-ship action and was at the capture of Copenhagen. In 1815 she spent six months with the West Africa Squadron suppressing the slave trade during which time she captured ten slavers and freed 500-1,000 slaves. She was wrecked in 1816 with no loss of life.
HMS Colibri was the French naval Curieux-class brig Colibri, launched in 1808, that the British captured in 1809 and took into the Royal Navy under her existing name. She spent her time in British service on the North American station based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During the War of 1812, Colibri served mostly in blockading the American coast and capturing privateers and merchant ships. She foundered in 1813 in Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, but without loss of life.
HMS Moselle was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1804. She served during the Napoleonic Wars in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the North American station. She was sold in 1815.
HMS Speedwell was the mercantile Royal George, which the Royal Navy purchased in 1815 and converted to a 5-gun schooner. During her career in the West Indies, she helped capture or destroy a number of pirate vessels, and capture several slave ships transporting enslaved people. The Royal Navy sold her at Jamaica in 1834.
HMS Thais was built for the British Royal Navy in 1806 and was the name-vessel of her class of fire ships. Between 1811 and 1813 she served in the West Africa Squadron, which was attempting to suppress the slave trade. During this service she captured several slave traders and an American privateer. She made one voyage to the East Indies. Thais was sold in 1818. She then became a merchantman. She was last listed in 1826.
HMS Saracen was launched in 1812 at Portsmouth for the British Royal Navy. She had an active, though brief, naval career during which she captured a number of enemy-held islands and enemy vessels. The navy sold her in 1819 and new owners employed her as a whaler for two voyages between 1819 and 1826. She was apparently wrecked in 1828 off the coast of Chile, but with little or no loss of life.
HMS Nimrod was a brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1812. She spent her war years in North American waters where she captured one small privateer, assisted in the capture of another, and captured or destroyed some 50 American vessels. After the war she captured smugglers and assisted the civil authorities in maintaining order in Tyne. She was wrecked in 1827 and so damaged that the Navy decided she was not worth repairing. A private ship-owner purchased Nimrod and repaired her. She then went on to spend some 20 years trading between Britain and Charleston, the Mediterranean, Australia, and India. She was last listed in 1851.
HMS Union was the mercantile City of Kingston that the Royal Navy purchased in 1823 for service as a 3-gun schooner. She served in the suppression of the slave trade in the West Indies. She was wrecked in 1828.
HMS Barbadoes was a 16-gun vessel, the American Herald, captured in 1813. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Barbadoes She captured a number of merchantmen and privateers before she was paid-off in May 1816. In 1814–1815 she also captured three Spanish and French slave ships carrying over 1100 enslaved people. Barbadoes became a powder ship in Jamaica that was later wrecked with her remains being sold.
HMS Partridge was a Cormorant-class ship-sloop launched in 1809. She captured some small vessels while serving in the Mediterranean in 1813–1814. She participated in the blockade of Naples in 1815 with the result that her officers and crew received a great deal of prize money for its fall. She was broken up in 1816.
References
Drew, Pamela Statham (2003) James Stirling, Admiral and Founding Governor of Western Australia. ISBN1-876268-94-8
Grindal, Peter (2016). Opposing the Slavers: The Royal Navy's Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade. I.B.Tauris. ASINB01MYTNUEH.
Moore Smith, G.C. (1902) The Autobiography of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Smith, baronet of Aliwal on the Sutlej.
Murdoch, R.A. (1964) A British Report on West Florida and Louisiana, November 1812.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN9781861762467.
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