HMS Bustler (1805)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svgUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Bustler
Ordered20 November 1804
BuilderObadiah Ayles, Topsham, Exeter
Laid downMarch 1805
Launched12 August 1805
Captured26 December 1808
Flag of France.svgFrance
NameBustler
Acquired1808 by capture
Captured8 December 1813
General characteristics [1]
Class and type Confounder-class brig
Tons burthen18053⁄94 (bm)
Length
  • Overall: 84 ft 0+3⁄4 in (25.6 m)
  • Keel: 69 ft 8+7⁄8 in (21.3 m)
Beam22 ft 0+3⁄4 in (6.7 m)
Depth of hold11 ft 0 in (3.4 m)
Sail plan Brig
Complement
  • Royal Navy:50
  • French Navy:67
Armament

HMS Bustler was launched at Topsham in 1805. The French captured her in 1808 when she stranded and attempts to set fire to her failed. The French Navy took her into service as Bustler. The British recaptured her in 1813 when attempts by her crew to scuttle her failed. The Royal Navy did not take her into service and her subsequent disposition is currently obscure.

Contents

Royal Navy

In February 1806 Bustler was under the command of Lieutenant Richard Welch. The gunbrigs Bustler, Blazer, and Furious shared in the proceeds from the capture on 13 August 1806 of Experiencia. [2]

In 1807 Lieutenant Edward Morris was in temporary command until Lieutenant Welch returned to command.

Blazer, Bustler, and Tickler shared in the proceeds of the detention on 27 August 1807 of Hausstind, Auroe, master. [3] Blazer, Bustler, and Princess of Orange shared in the proceeds when their boats detained Eos and Amicitia on 28 August. [lower-alpha 1]

That same month Blazer, Bustler, and Furious detained Rosenora. [5]

On 1 June 1808 Bustler, under Welch's command, captured the French schooner Deux Guillaume and the boats Felix and Bien Venu. [6]

Capture: On 26 December 1808 Bustler was cruising off the north coast of France when she ran aground in thick weather. As the tide went out she fell on her side. As the weather cleared it was found that she was about two hundred yards from Cape Gris-Nez. Welch put Bustler's boats into the water to pull her off, but a shore battery started an accurate fire on her. Welch ordered most of the crew aboard the boats, which took them off. He stayed behind with a small party to set fire to her. The cutter Nymphe came up and picked up the crew. Welch and his men set fire to Bustler and then rowed to the cutter. When the fire appeared to go out Nymphe attempted to return to Bustler, but luggers and gunboats could be seen approaching from Calais and Boulogne and the British gave up and sailed off. The subsequent court martial blamed the grounding on negligence by the master and pilot. It ordered them dismissed the service, mulcted of all pay, and to be imprisoned for a year. [7]

French Navy

The French Navy purchased Bustler on 18 March 1809 and commissioned her, without change of name, at Boulogne on 16 April. [8] [9] She was stationed in the waters of Escault and at Vlissingen, and moored at Antwerp from April 1810. [9]

On 8 December 1813 HMS Horatio, under the command of Captain Lord George Stuart, and HMS Amphion captured the island of Schowen during the Dutch uprising. The two British ships landed a small joint force of marines and seamen, who met no opposition as the French surrendered first. In addition to prisoners, guns, and arms, the British re-captured a French gunboat and a brig of 14 guns that turned out to be Bustler. [10] Bustler had been serving as station ship at Zierikzee, [1] the capital of Schowen. HMS Tickler was in company. [lower-alpha 2]

Fate

Bustler's subsequent disposition is currently uncertain, though she may have fallen into the hands of the Dutch. [9]

Notes

  1. ↑ A second-class share of the proceeds, that of a Lieutenant, was worth £30 1s 6½d; a sixth-class share, that of an Ordinary Seaman, was worth £1 1s 0¼d. [4]
  2. ↑ Prize money for Bustler was paid in 1815. A first-class share was worth £237 17s; a sixth-class share, that of an Ordinary Seaman, was worth £2 1s 2d. [11]

Citations

  1. 1 2 Winfield (2008), p. 345.
  2. ↑ "No. 16081". The London Gazette . 31 October 1807. p. 1441.
  3. ↑ "No. 16423". The London Gazette . 10 November 1810. p. 1788.
  4. ↑ "No. 17485". The London Gazette . 12 June 1819. p. 1027.
  5. ↑ "No. 16434". The London Gazette . 11 December 1810. p. 1985.
  6. ↑ "No. 16314". The London Gazette . 11 November 1809. p. 1810.
  7. ↑ Hepper (1994), p. 127.
  8. ↑ Winfield & Roberts (2015), p. 222.
  9. 1 2 3 Roche (2013), pp. 89–90.
  10. ↑ "No. 16826". The London Gazette . 18 December 1813. pp. 2551–2552.
  11. ↑ "No. 16983". The London Gazette . 11 February 1815. p. 239.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Belette</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Belette was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by King at Dover and launched on 21 March 1806. During the Napoleonic Wars she served with some success in the Baltic and the Caribbean. Belette was lost in the Kattegat in 1812 when she hit a rock off Læsø.

HMS <i>Foxhound</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Foxhound was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by King at Dover and launched in 1806. She participated in the battle of the Basque Roads in early 1809 and foundered later that year.

During the period of the Napoleonic Wars, two vessels have served the British Royal Navy as His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Idas, named for Idas, a figure from Greek mythology.

HMS <i>Entreprenante</i> (1799) Cutter of the Royal Navy

HMS Entreprenante, was a 10-gun cutter that the Royal Navy captured from the French in 1798. The British commissioned her in 1799 and she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, participating in the Battle of Trafalgar. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She took part in several small engagements, capturing Spanish and French ships before she was sold in 1812 for breaking up.

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 <i>Piercer</i> (1804) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Piercer was a Royal Navy Archer-class gun-brig launched in 1804. She served against the French, Danes and Dutch in the Napoleonic Wars and was assigned to the Downs station. She participated in a number of operations in the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, and the North Sea. In 1814 the British government transferred Piercer to the Kingdom of Hanover for use as a guard ship. Hanover decommissioned her in 1850.

HMS Dominica was the French privateer schooner J(T?)opo L'Oeil that the British captured in 1807 in the Leeward Islands. She took part in one inconclusive single-ship action before she foundered in 1809.

HMS Alphea was built of Bermudan pencil cedar as a cutter and launched in 1804. Later she was converted to a schooner. She captured a number of small prizes before September 1813 when she blew up in a single-ship action with the loss of her entire crew.

Mutin was a 14-gun cutter of the French Navy, the lead ship of the Mutin class of five naval cutters. She was launched in 1778 and the Royal Navy captured her the next year, taking her into service as HMS Mutine. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Pigmy in 1798. She was lost in 1805.

HMS <i>Columbine</i> (1806) Brig of the Royal Navy

HMS Columbine was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop launched in 1806. She served on the North America station, in the Mediterranean, off the Portuguese coast, and in the West Indies during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1823 she served briefly off Greece before wrecking off the Peloponnese in 1824.

HMS Briseis was a 10-gun Cherokee- class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1808 at Upnor, on the River Medway. She participated in one notable single ship action before she wrecked in 1816.

The French brig Carlotta was a brig-rigged corvetta-cannoniera or, corvetta-brig, of 10 guns, launched in 1807 at Venice as Fiamma that served the French Navy as Carlotta. HMS Belle Poule captured her in 1810 and the British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Carlotta. She was wrecked in 1812.

HMS Pultusk was the American-built French privateer sloop Austerlitz, which had been launched in 1805 and which the Royal Navy captured in 1807 and took into service as HMS Pultusk. Pultusk served in three campaigns, two of which resulted, some four decades later, in the award of medals, and one boat action that too received a medal. She was broken up in 1810.

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.

HMS <i>Monkey</i> (1801) Brig of the Royal Navy

HMS Monkey was launched in 1801 at Rochester. She served in the Channel, North Sea, and the Baltic, and was wrecked in December 1810.

HMS Rapide was a British schooner of unknown name that the French captured in 1806. The French Navy took her into service as Villaret, but renamed her Rapide. She then became the model for a class of advice boats (avisos). The British Royal Navy captured her in 1808 in the West Indies and took her into service as the ship's tender Rapide. She was lost in 1814.

HMS Princess of Orange was launched in 1796 by the Amsterdam department of the Dutch Navy. In 1799 the British Royal Navy captured her during the Vlieter incident. From 1800 to 1811 she served on the North Sea, Channel, and Irish stations frequently serving as a flagship for various British admirals. Between 1811 and 1820 she served as a powder hulk; she was sold for breaking up in 1822.

HMS Tickler was a cutter built at Dover in 1798 as the mercantile Lord Duncan. Between October 1798 and October 1801 she served the Royal Navy as the hired armed cutter Lord Duncan. Lord Duncan captured or recaptured several vessels, including one privateer. The Navy purchased Lord Duncan in October 1808 and renamed her HMS Tickler. It sold her in 1816.

HMS <i>Tickler</i> (1804) Gunvessel of the Royal Navy

HMS Tickler was launched in August 1808 at Brightlingsea as a later Archer-class gunbrig. She served in the Channel and the Baltic until the Danes captured her in 1808 during the Gunboat War. They sold her in 1815. From 1815 to 1852 she sailed as Frederikke Louise, first as a merchantman and then from 1843 to 1851 as a sealer.

HMS Conflict was launched in 1805. She captured a number of vessels, including privateers, and participated in several major actions. She disappeared in November 1810 with the loss of all her crew.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.