 Fly and Other Vessels by Francis Holman | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Great Britain | |
| Name | HMS Fly |
| Acquired | 1778, by purchase |
| Captured | 4 June 1781 |
| General characteristics | |
| Complement | 50 [1] |
| Armament | 8 carriage guns + swivel guns [1] |
HMS Fly was a cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1778. The French Navy captured Fly in June 1781.
Lieutenant Milham Ponsonby commissioned Fly in May 1780. [2] On 29 November he sailed her to the West Indies to join Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood's squadron. [3] Ponsonby was promoted to commander on 15 January 1781 but stayed with Fly. [4] Fly was assigned to the protection of the island of Tobago, arriving there with a convoy on 21 January. While there Fly's surgeon attempted to start a mutiny on the ship, trying to persuade the crew that they were not subject to naval discipline; Ponsonby had him removed from Fly. [5]
While on station Fly, described in the London Gazette as a sloop, captured the Dutch brigantine Hope as Hope attempted to sail from Demerara to Amsterdam. Hope's cargo was condemned at the Tobago vice admiralty court, and Fly's crew received prize money from the capture in December 1784. [6]
Following the French invasion of Tobago on 24 May, Admiral George Rodney sent Fly, HMS Shelanagig, and Munster Lass to reconnoitre Tobago to gather what information they could, especially about possible landing sites for British troops. The three took different routes. [7]
On 28 May near St Lucia Shelanagig encountered the French fleet under Comte de Grasse, which captured her. [8] By 2 June, the French had successfully gained control of Tobago.
On 4 June Fly was off Tobago when at 4pm she sighted a large vessel heading for her. Fly attempted to escape. After an all-night chase that extended over 60 miles, the French vessel was able to come to within cannon-shot of Fly. The French ship was the 74-gun third-rate ship of the line Glorieux . Glorieux fired several shots over Fly; Fly fired a pro-forma broadside and then Ponsonby struck.
Only Munster Lass managed to rejoin the British fleet, and it was she that brought the news of Tobago's surrender. [9] The Royal Navy's West India squadron recaptured Schelanagig, in 1782, but there is no report of her subsequent disposition. [10] It is not clear what happened to Fly.
Rodney learned of Ferguson's surrender on June 4, and immediately sailed out from Barbados. When he finally spotted de Grasse's fleet, the latter was sailing for Grenada with 24 ships of the line to Rodney's 20; Rodney decided to avoid action, claiming later that he was concerned that chasing de Grasse would have left him to leeward, with de Grasse then free to attack Barbados. The French held Tobago until 1814.
HMS St Albans was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 12 September 1764 by Perry, Wells & Green at their Blackwall Yard, London.
Fénix was an 80-gun ship of the line (navio) of the Spanish Navy, built by Pedro de Torres at Havana in accordance with the system laid down by Antonio Gaztaneta launched in 1749. In 1759, she was sent to bring the new king, Carlos III, from Naples to Barcelona. When Spain entered the American Revolutionary War in June 1779, Fénix set sail for the English Channel where she was to join a Franco-Spanish fleet of more than 60 ships of the line under Lieutenant General Luis de Córdova y Córdova. The Armada of 1779 was an invasion force of 40,000 troops with orders to capture the British naval base at Portsmouth.
Glorieux was a 74-gun ship of the line in the French Navy. Built by Clairin Deslauriers at Rochefort and launched on 10 August 1756, she was rebuilt in 1777.
The Invasion of Tobago was a French invasion of the British-held island of Tobago during the Anglo-French War. On May 24, 1781, the fleet of Comte de Grasse landed troops on the island under the command of General Marquis de Bouillé. By June 2, 1781, they had successfully gained control of the island.
Six ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Sandwich, either after the English seaside town of Sandwich, or one of the holders of the title Earl of Sandwich, particularly Vice-Admiral Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, or First Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. A seventh ship was planned, but never completed:
HMS Prince William was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had previously been Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, but was better known as Guipuzcoano, an armed merchantmen of the Spanish Basque Guipuzcoan Company of Caracas.
HMS Sibyl was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Sibyl was renamed HMS Garland in 1795.
The French cutter Espion was a cutter launched in 1781. The British captured her and took her in 1782 into the Royal Navy as HMS Espion. The Royal Navy sold her in 1783.
HMS Shelanagig was a sloop of 16-guns purchased in the West Indies in 1780 for the Royal Navy. She was under the command of James Shepherd,, and her Second Lieutenant was Home Popham.
HMS Tapageur was the French privateer cutter Tapageur, launched in 1778 or 1779, possibly at Dunkirk. The British captured her in 1779, while she was operating out of Saint Malo. She wrecked a year later in the West Indies.
HMS Loyalist was the 14-gun sloop Restoration, which the Royal Navy purchased in North America in 1779. In May 1781 her captain was Morgan Laugharne.
Pandour was a French a 14-gun gun-brig launched in 1780 as a cutter. The Royal Navy captured her in December 1795 and took her into service as Pandora, but she foundered in June 1797.
HMS Resolution was a cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1779. She captured two French privateers in 1781 and a Dutch privateer in 1783 after a single ship action. Resolution captured one more small French privateer in June 1797; later that month Resolution went missing in the North Sea, presumed to have foundered.
HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.
HMS Ceres was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1777 for the British Royal Navy that the French captured in December 1778 off Saint Lucia. The French Navy took her into service as Cérès. The British recaptured her in 1782 and renamed her HMS Raven, only to have the French recapture her again early in 1783. The French returned her name to Cérès, and she then served in the French Navy until sold at Brest in 1791.
The French brig Duc de Chartres was built between 1779 and 1780 at Le Havre as a 24-gun privateer. As a privateer she captured one British warship before in 1781 the Royal Navy captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. She then captured several American privateers and armed merchant vessels, and one French naval corvette in a noteworthy single-ship action. The Navy sold Duc de Chartres in 1784.
HMS Tobago was a schooner of unknown origin that the British Royal Navy purchased in 1805. In 1806 a French privateer captured her. The Royal Navy recaptured her in 1809 and took her into service as HMS Vengeur before selling her later that year.
Experiment was a 50-gun ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. Captured by Sagittaire during the War of American Independence, she was recommissioned in the French Navy, where she served into the 1800s.
HMS Stormont was the highly successful American privateer General Pickering, which Admiral Rodney's British fleet captured on 3 February 1781 at the capture of Sint Eustatius. She was one of nine captured American vessels that the British sent to Antigua a few days later to be assessed for possible purchase. The Royal Navy purchased General Pickering on 14 February and Commander Nicholas Charrington commissioned her in the Leeward Islands for service as HM Sloop Stormont. Commander Christmas Paul replaced Charrington.
Munster Lass was launched in the Thirteen Colonies in 1760 or 1762. She was captured and recaptured in 1780. She served the Royal Navy in 1781, and then disappears from online records.