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.
Between 1 October and 14 December 1808, Colibri was under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Deslandes, who sailed her from Havre to Cherbourg. In December or January he then left Cherbourg for San Domingo.[3]
Capture
On 16 January 1809 Melampus, under Captain Edward Hawker, captured Colibri off Barbuda, after her captain had the "temerity" to put up a fight as Melampus was sailing alongside. Colibri was armed with fourteen 24-pounder carronades and two 8-pounder guns, and had a crew of 92 men. In the engagement, Colibri had three men killed and 11 wounded before she struck. She was sailing from Cherbourg with a cargo of 570 barrels of flour and a great quantity of gunpowder intended for the relief of San Domingo. On her way she had captured and sunk two British brigs that had been sailing from Newfoundland to Lisbon, the Hannibal and the Priscilla, both of Dartmouth.[4] The Royal Navy took Colibri into service under her existing name.
British service
The British commissioned Colibri in October under Lieutenant Henry Jane. He received his promotion to Commander, a rank more in keeping with the size of his vessel, on 10 May 1810.[2] In October 1809, Commander John Thomson replaced Jane.[2] He remained in command until her loss in August 1813 apart from a short period between December 1812 and February 1813 when he acted as Port Captain in Halifax and George Brooke-Pechell held acting command.[5]
Colibri was in company with Melampus on 9 October 1810 when she captured Fortuna.[lower-alpha 1]
On 15 March 1811, Colibri captured the American slaver Carolina (alias Atrevido) off Amelia Island with some 200 slaves. Atrevido, Ponce de Leon, master, was sailing from Loanga to Amelia Island; Colibri sent her into Nassau.[7] Later, the Vice Admiralty Court in Bermuda appears to have decided that the vessel's putative Spanish nationality was fraudulent and that she was, in fact, American. The number of slaves freed at Nassau turned out to be 204.[8][lower-alpha 2]
On 25 March 1811, Little Belt captured the Spanish vessel Empressa.[lower-alpha 3]Colibri was either accompanying Little Belt or in sight of the capture and so shared in the prize money.[11]
On 28 June 1812 Colibri was despatched from Halifax under a flag of truce to New York, carrying news that the Orders in Council had been repealed. On 9 July she anchored off Sandy-Hook, and three days later sailed on her return with a copy of the declaration of war, the British ambassador, Mr. Foster, and consul, Colonel Barclay. She then arrived in Halifax eight days later.
On 19 July Colibrie recaptured Fanny, Colleton, master, which had been sailing from Port Glasgow to St Johns when originally captured. Her cargo was valued at £7,800.[12]
On 23 July Colibri captured the U.S. privateer sloop Gleaner, of Kennebunk, Maine, off Cape Sable. Gleaner was armed with six guns and had a crew of 40 men under the command of Captain N. Lord. She was on her first cruise.[13][lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5]
Ship Catherine (in the foreground) and Schooner Industry on 8 January 1806
On 24 July 1812, Colibri sighted three vessels off Cape Sable and gave chase to one, a schooner. When Colibri got close she exchanged signals with the schooner, which turned to be Bream. Colibri then chased and took two other vessels, which turned out to be an American privateer and a bark, her prize. The privateer was Catherine; eight days out of Boston; she had taken only the bark. Catherine, under the command of Francis A. Burnham, was pierced for 16 guns but mounted fourteen 6-pounder guns and had a crew of 88 men.[16][lower-alpha 6] She had suffered one man killed and one wounded before she surrendered after a 15-minute action. Her casualties were low as the crew had taken refuge below decks.[16] In contrast to Thomson's official report, one American newspaper reported that the action had lasted one and a half hours and that Colibri had six men killed and several wounded.[18]
On 2 August 1812 Colibri met up with Emulous and reported that an American privateer was said to be sheltering nearby.[19] The two set out together and as they approached the coast Emulous suddenly grounded. During the efforts to get her off, Colibri took off all non-essential crew and the prisoners she had on board. Shortly thereafter Emulous fell over onto her beam-ends and became unsalvageable. Her position was some 19 miles from Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia.[19][20] This incident coincidentally foreshadowed Colibri's own fate the following year.
On 11 August 1812 Colibri captured the American privateer schooner Polly in the Bay of Fundy. Polly was armed with four guns and had a crew of 35 men.[21] That same day, Colibri was in company with Statira for the capture of the American privateer Buckskin.[21][lower-alpha 7]
The next day Colibri captured two more small American privateers, both off Cape Sable. One was the schooner Regulator. She was armed with just one gun and had a crew of 40 men.[21][lower-alpha 8] The second was the Dolphin, for which Colibri shared the capture with Maidstone. Dolphin had two guns and a crew of 48 men.[21] On 13 August Colibri shared with Maidstone, Spartan and Indian in the capture of the American vessel John.[24][lower-alpha 9]
Ten days later, Colibri captured the ship Monk, of 253 tons. She was sailing from Rio de Janeiro to Salem with a cargo of sugar, hides, and horns.[26][lower-alpha 10]
San Domingo, Dragon, Statira and Colibri shared the capture of three vessels at the beginning of 1813. These were the American schooners Scyron (16 January) and American Eagle (18 January), and the Swedish brig Hanosand (13 February).[28][lower-alpha 11]
On 10 February Statira shared with five other warships in the capture of the St. Michael. However, Statira had to divide up her portion because she was in a prize-money sharing agreement with Colibri, Dragon, and San Domingo.[lower-alpha 12] Then Colibri captured 10 small merchantmen, most of them American.[31]
Brig Commerce, of 120 tons and 11 men, carrying lumber, from Rhode Island to Havana, captured on 14 March and burnt.
Schooner Female, of 95 tons and six men, carrying flour, butter, and lard, from Baltimore to La Guira, captured 27 March and sent to Bermuda.
Swedish schooner Minerva, of 130 tons and 13 men, carrying molasses and sugar from Charleston to St. Bartholomew, captured on 29 March and sent to Providence.
Schooner Portsmouth, carrying lumber, from Cuba to Rhode Island, captured on 16 April and sent to Providence.
Schooner Eliza, of 95 tons, carrying sundries from Wilmington to Savannah,' captured 1 May and sent to Bermuda.
Schooner Nancy carrying sundries from Georgetown to Savannah, captured 1 May, burnt after the transfer of her cargo to the Eliza.
Schooner Sampit, carrying sundries from Georgetown to Savannah, captured 1 May and burnt after the transfer of her cargo to the Eliza.
Schooner Wingaw, carrying sundries from Georgtown to Savannah, captured 1 May, burnt after the transfer of her cargo to the Eliza.
Spanish ship El de Padato in Cortes, of 160 tons and 14 men, carrying molasses, sugar, etc. from New York to Matanza's, captured 27 May and sent to Providence.
Swedish schooner Gustava, of 140 tons and 8 men, carrying flour, meal, &c. from Carthagena to Savannah, captured 17 June and sent to Providence.
In August 1813, Colibri and Moselle were blockading the U.S. coast between Charleston and Georgetown. There was little shipping so the pair conducted a number of boat raids along the coast. They then decided to sail south of Charleston and on August they entered Port Royal Sound, South Carolina (not Port Royal, Jamaica as stated in some sources),.[35] They anchored, but resistance by the local militia, which had erected shore batteries, forestalled any raids. Colibri and Moselle then decided to return to sea on August 23. However, the weather was poor and Colibri grounded on a sandbar as she led Moselle out. Attempts to lighten her and get her off were unsuccessful and as the tide went out she fell over to larboard. Her crew cut away her masts, but she was stuck fast. Moselle then rescued Colibri's crew, who abandoned the wreck.[36] A hurricane on 27 August 1813 destroyed Colibri and her boats. Moselle was able to find a passage and navigate across the bar to the open sea on 29 August. Thomson and his officers and crew were subsequently acquitted of any wrongdoing at the court martial into the loss of Colibri.
Notes
↑ A first-class share of the prize money was worth £32 15s 3d; a sixth-class share was worth 8s 3+1⁄4d.[6]
↑ She had left her homeport, probably Charleston, on 20 July 1810. She had embarked 219 slaves and delivered 204. Her owner was William Broadfoot, an American.[9]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money was worth £124 2s 11d; a sixth-class share of the prize money was worth £2 15s 10d.[10]
↑ A first-class share of the prize money was worth £39 10s 8d; a sixth-class share was worth 14s 4+1⁄4d.[14]
↑ The summary of the case brought before the Vice Admiralty Court in Halifax gave the name of her master as J. Robinson. It described her cargo as consisting of guns, ammunition, and provisions. Gleaner was taken into Provincial service.[15]
↑ Catherine had a burthen of 281 tons. She was armed, and carrying powder and provisions.[17]
↑ Buckskin, of 39 tons (bm), Isaac Bray, master, was out of Newberry Port.[22] In February 1818 prize money was payable but appears to have come in two tranches, each of equal size. A first-class share was worth £12 1s 8+1⁄2d; a sixth-class share was worth 3s 4+1⁄2d. The first tranche was payable but the second tranche was subject to deductions for expenses in the case of the "Deputado en Cortes por la Havanna".[23]
↑ A first-class share was worth £39 19s 5+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth 18s 4d.[24]
↑ A first class share for Dolphin was worth £5 10s 8d; a sixth-class share was worth 1s 7+1⁄2d. A first-class share for John was worth £30 1s 11d; a sixth-class share was worth 8s 3+3⁄4d.[25]
↑ A first-class share was worth £1601 19s 5+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth £36 19s 4d.[27]
↑ A first class share of the prize money for the two American schooners was worth £80 1s 9+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth 10s 4+1⁄2d. A first-class share for the Swedish brig was worth £20 8s 10+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth 2s 7+1⁄2d.[29]
↑ A first-class share was worth £9; a sixth-class share was worth 1s 4d.[30]
↑ A first-class share was worth £52 17s 6d; a sixth-class share was worth £1 4s 2+1⁄2d.[33] Later, there was bounty money for three slaves on Minerva. A first-class share was worth £7 10s 8+1⁄4d; a sixth-class share was worth 3s 5+1⁄4d.[34]
Nautilus was a schooner launched in 1799. The United States Navy purchased her in May 1803 and commissioned her USS Nautilus; she thus became the first ship to bear that name. She served in the First Barbary War. She was altered to a brigantine. The British captured Nautilus early in the War of 1812 and renamed her HMS Emulous. After her service with the Royal Navy, the Admiralty sold her in 1817.
HMS Fantome was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally a French privateer brig named Fantôme, which the British captured in 1810 and commissioned into British service. Fantome saw extensive action in the War of 1812 until she was lost in a shipwreck at Prospect, Nova Scotia, near Halifax in 1814.
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.
HMS Poictiers was a 74-gun Royal Navy third rate. This ship of the line was launched on 9 December 1809 at Upnor. During the War of 1812 she was part of the blockade of the United States. She was broken up in 1857.
HMS Acasta was a 40-gun Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate. She saw service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as the War of 1812. Although she never took part in any notable single-ship actions nor saw action in a major battle though she was at the Battle of San Domingo, she captured numerous prizes and rid the seas of many Spanish, French and American privateers. She was finally broken up in 1821.
HMS Niemen was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate. She began her career as the Niémen, a 44-gun French Navy Armide-class frigate, designed by Pierre Rolland. She was only in French service for a few months when in 1809 she encountered some British frigates. The British captured her and she continued in British service as Niemen. In British service she cruised in the Atlantic and North American waters, taking numerous small American prizes, some privateers but mostly merchantmen. She was broken up in 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.
HMS Spartan was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate, launched at Rochester in 1806. During the Napoleonic Wars she was active in the Adriatic and in the Ionian Islands. She then moved to the American coast during the War of 1812, where she captured a number of small vessels, including a US Revenue Cutter and a privateer, the Dart. She then returned to the Mediterranean, where she remained for a few years. She went on to serve off the American coast again, and in the Caribbean, before being broken up in 1822.
HMS Ringdove was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop that Matthew Warren built at Brightlingsea and launched in 1806. She took some prizes and participated in three actions or campaigns that qualified her crew for clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. The Admiralty sold her in 1829 to Samuel Cunard, who would go on to found the Cunard Line.
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 Curlew (1812) was a Royal Navy Cruizer class brig-sloop built by (William) Good & Co., at Bridport and launched in 1812. She served with the Navy for only 10 years. During the War of 1812 she sailed from Halifax and captured several American privateers. Her greatest moment was her role in the 1819 British occupation of Ras Al Khaimah, leading to the signature of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, which established the Trucial States, today the United Arab Emirates. Curlew was sold in 1822 in Bombay. She then had a 13 or so year career as an opium runner for James Matheson, one of the founders of the firm Jardine Matheson.
HMS Bream was a British Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1807. Bream operated primarily in North American waters and had an uneventful career until the War of 1812. She then captured two small American privateers and assisted in the recovery of a third, much larger one. She also captured a number of small prizes before she was sold or broken up in 1816.
HMS Shelburne was the American letter of marque schooner Racer, built in Baltimore in 1811 and captured by the British in 1813. She served on the American coast, capturing the American brig Frolic. She also captured some merchantmen and was sold in Britain in 1817.
HMS Paz was a Spanish naval schooner that the British Royal Navy captured at Monte Video on 3 February 1807. She served on the River Plate, North Sea, and North American Stations, where she captured numerous privateers and merchant vessels. The Navy sold her in 1816.
HMS Canso was the American letter of marque schooner Lottery, launched in 1811, that a British squadron captured in 1813. The Royal Navy took Lottery into service as HMS Canso and she served during the War of 1812 and briefly thereafter. The navy sold her in 1816.
HMS Indian was a Bermuda-built sloop launched in 1805. She captured several small privateers while on the West Indies and Halifax stations before the Royal Navy sold her in 1817. Her main claim to fame, however, is that she was the first command of future Rear-Admiral Charles Austen, who was also the brother of the famed novelist Jane Austen. After the Navy sold her she became a whaler for Samuel Enderby & Sons. She apparently sailed for them until the mid-1830s; she then sailed for other owners until mid-1847, for a total of nine whaling voyages since leaving naval service.
HMS Atalante was an 18-cannon sloop-of-war launched in 1808, and ordered in 1806, from Bermuda. However, the ship was wrecked on 10 November 1813, caused by fog off Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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 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 vessels carrying over 1100 slaves. Barbadoes became a powder ship in Jamaica that was later wrecked with her remains being sold.
HMS Columbia was the United States privateer brig Curlew, which the British Royal Navy captured in 1812 and took into service as HMS Columbia. The Navy sold her in 1820.
HMS Cockchafer was a United States schooner, formerly named Spencer, that the Royal Navy (RN) captured and employed as a ship's tender. She captured two American armed brigs, one in a single-ship action. The Navy sold her in 1815.
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Fonds Marine. Campagnes (opérations; divisions et stations navales; missions diverses). Inventaire de la sous-série Marine BB4. Tome premier: BB4 210 à 482 (1805-1826)
Gosset, William Patrick (1986). The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. Mansell. ISBN0-7201-1816-6.
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN0-948864-30-3.
Maclay, Edgar Stanton (2004) [1899]. A History of American Privateers. New York: D. Appleton.
Vice-Admiralty Court, Halifax (1911). American vessels captured by the British during the revolution and war of 1812. Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute.}
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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