| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Commissioned | 16 July 1812 |
| Captured | 24 July 1812 |
 United Kingdom | |
| Acquired | 1812 by purchase of a prize |
| Fate | Sold 1820 |
| General characteristics [1] | |
| Tons burthen | 278, [2] or 29412⁄94 (bm) |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 26 ft 3 in (8.0 m) |
| Depth of hold | 13 ft 0 in (4.0 m) |
| Complement |
|
| Armament |
|
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.
On 24 July 1812 HMS Acasta captured the privateer Curlew 44°15′N62°30′W / 44.250°N 62.500°W . [3] Curlew, of 240 tons, was pierced for 18 guns but carried only sixteen, and had a complement of 172 men; [4] [lower-alpha 1] She was under the command of Captain William Wyer. [6]
Curlew arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia at the end of July. [7]
The Royal Navy took Curlew into service as HMS Columbia. In March 1813 she was under the command of Lieutenant John Kinsman. [1] On 28 May Commander Henry Chads replaced Kinsman. Columbia then brought home a number of invalids from Halifax. [8]
Columbia underwent fitting at Portsmouth between 19 November 1813 and 18 April 1814. [1] She then sailed for the Leeward Islands.
On 4 December 1814 Columbia captured the United States schooner Dolphin, of 62 tons, one gun, and 20 men. [9] Dolphin, under the command of Captain A. Johnson, of Massachusetts, apparently had accomplished little. [10]
Columbia participated in the Invasion of Guadeloupe (1815). On 8 August 1815 Columbia, under the command of Captain Fleming, was part of the British force that captured Guadeloupe from Bonaparte loyalists. French Royalist troops from Martinique, two corvettes, and a schooner assisted the British. Columbia, Fairy, and Barbadoes covered the landing of the troops; they helped silence a shore battery and drive the defenders back from the beach. Columbia, Chanticleer, and Muros then supported a third landing on a different part of the island. [11] [lower-alpha 2]
Columbia was paid off and went into Ordinary in November 1815. The Navy sold her there on 13 January 1820. [1]
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 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.
Bellone was a 44-gun Consolante-class frigate of the French Navy.
Young Teazer was a United States privateer schooner that captured 12 British vessels, five of which made it to American ports. A member of her crew blew her up at Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia during the War of 1812 after a series of British warships chased her and after HMS Hogue trapped her. The schooner became famous for this deadly explosion, which killed most of her crew, and for the folklore about the ghostly "Teazer Light."
HMS Recruit was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1806 at Sandwich, Kent. She is best known for an act of pique by Commander Warwick Lake, who marooned a seaman, and for an inconclusive but hard-fought ship action under Commander Charles John Napier against the French corvette Diligente. She captured a number of American vessels as prizes during the War of 1812 before being laid up in 1815 and sold for breaking up in 1822.
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 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 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 Laura was an Adonis-class schooner of the Royal Navy, launched in 1806 at Bermuda. Laura served during the Napoleonic Wars before a French privateer captured her at the beginning of the War of 1812. She was briefly an American letter of marque before the British recaptured her in 1813. Despite having recaptured her, the British did not return Laura to service.
When HMS Maidstone and HMS Spartan captured the American privateer Rapid in 1812, the Royal Navy took her into service as the 14-gun gun-brig HMS Nova Scotia. She was renamed HMS Ferret in 1813 and sold in 1820.
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 Dominica was the French letter of marque schooner Duc de Wagram, which the British captured in 1809 in the Leeward Islands and took into the Royal Navy in 1810. The American privateer Decatur captured her in 1813 in a notable single-ship action. However, Majestic recaptured her in 1814. She was wrecked in 1815
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 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 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 Plumper was launched in 1807. She captured three small American privateers early in the War of 1812 but was wrecked in December 1812.
Invincible Napoleon was a three-masted French privateer commissioned in Bayonne in Spring 1804. She made numerous cruises until 1813–1814 when the British and the Americans repeatedly captured her. In her brief career as an American privateer she captured some 14 vessels. She finally ended up in British hands and was taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia as a prize.
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 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.