| History | |
|---|---|
 Great Britain | |
| Name | HMS Gipsy |
| Acquired | 1799 |
| Fate | Disposed of in 1804 |
| General characteristics [1] | |
| Sail plan | Schooner |
| Complement | 42 |
| Armament | 10 × 4-pounder guns |
HMS Gipsy (or Gipsey) was a schooner in service as a ship's tender to several flagships in the Caribbean between 1799 and 1804. In that service she captured several French privateers.
Although there is information on her service history, there is no information extant on her origins, fate, burthen, or other dimensions. [2]
On 22 April 1800, the tender Gipsey, Lieutenant Tippett, commanding, captured the French privateer schooner Innocent, of two guns and 37 men. Innocent, of Guadaloupe, had left Pointe Pitre on a privateering cruise. [3]
On 7 June, Gipsey, captured the French privateer schooner Volante, of one gun, small arms, and ten men. Volante, of Guadaloupe, had left Guadaloupe on a privateering cruise. [4]
On 30 June the tenders Gipsy and Pickle captured the French privateer schooner Fidelle (probably Fidèle), which was armed with four guns and had a crew of 61 men. She was from Guadeloupe and on a privateering cruise when the two British vessels captured her. [5]
On 7 October Gipsey was serving as a tender to Leviathan, and was under the command of Lieutenant Corydon Boger. Admiral J.T.Duckworth, Commander-in-Chief at Barbados and the Leeward Islands Station, had ordered Gipsey to convoy the merchant ship Charlotte northward of "the islands". As Gipsey was passing Guadaloupe she encountered a French sloop. A single ship action ensued that persisted for several hours before the sloop struck. She proved to be Quid pro Quo, of eight 6 & 9-pounder guns and 98 men, 80 of whom were chasseurs and cannoneers from Guadeloupe. In the action, Gipsey had one man killed and 11 wounded, including Boger. Two or five of the wounded died later of their wounds. The French had four men killed including Captain Tourpié, formerly a capitaine de fregate in the French navy, and 11 wounded. Charlotte assisted Gipsey with the casualties and the prisoners. Boger put into St John's to get the wounded into hospital and to effect repairs, both Gipsey and Quiproquo having sustained damage to their rigging. [1] [lower-alpha 1]
On 24 December Gipsey detained the American schooner Polly, which was sailing from Baltimore to Santiago de Cuba with a cargo of naval stores. The master, when hailed, stated that Polly was bound to Saint Bartholomew, but her papers and clearance were for Cuba. [7]
On 27 December Gipsey detained the Hamburg ship Aurora, which was carrying a cargo of sugar, cotton, and indigo. The evidence showed that Aurora was bound to Bordeaux, even though the master had destroyed her papers. [7]
On 5 January 1801 Gipsey captured the Swedish schooner Courtenny, which was carrying a cargo of sugar, coffee, and indigo. She had come from Point Petre and Gipsey chased her until Courtenny upset off Saint Bartholomew. [7]
On 2 February Tamar, Gipsey, and Cayenne recaptured the American brig Industry. Industry was carrying a cargo of cattle and mules. [8]
On 19 October 1803 Gipsey was under the command of Lieutenant E.K. Foley, of HMS Hercule. She was about six or eight leagues south of Cape Maize when she encountered a French privateer schooner of two long 18-pounder guns and a large crew. After a running fight of two hours and forty minutes, Gipsey drove the privateer on shore. Although Foley claimed to have completely destroyed the French schooner, he had to abandon any attempt to get her off because the night was dark and the wind was rising. [9]
Late in 1803, Michael Fitton was appointed to Gipsy, then tender to HMS Abergavenny. At the attack on Curaçao in 1804, Fitton was the only officer in the squadron who was acquainted with the island. The therefore piloted the ships in and had virtually the direction of the landing. On the failure of the expedition Gipsy carried the despatches to the admiral, and Fitton, in accordance with the senior officer's recommendation, received a promotion to lieutenant.
HMS Galatea was a fifth-rate 32-gun sailing frigate of the British Royal Navy that George Parsons built at Bursledon and launched in 1794. Before she was broken up in 1809 she captured numerous prizes and participated in a number of actions, first in the Channel and off Ireland (1794–1803), and then in the Caribbean (1802–1809), including one that earned her crew the Naval General Service Medal.
HMS Pickle was a topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, of six guns, that Lord Hugh Seymour purchased to use as a tender on the Jamaica station. Pickle was at the Battle of Trafalgar, and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
HMS Gaiete was a French Bonne Citoyenne-class corvette that the British frigate HMS Arethusa captured off Bermuda in 1797. She then served the Royal Navy until she was sold in 1808.
Heureux was a 22-gun French privateer brig that the British captured in 1800. She served with the Royal Navy as the 22-gun post ship HMS Heureux. She captured numerous French and Spanish privateers and merchant vessels in the Caribbean Sea before she was lost at sea in 1806. Her fate remains a mystery to this day.
HMS Apollo, the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a fifth-rate frigate of a nominal 36 guns. She was the name ship of the Apollo-class frigates. Apollo was launched in 1799, and wrecked with heavy loss of life in 1804.
HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
HMS Amethyst was a Royal Navy 36-gun Penelope-class fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1799 at Deptford. Amethyst served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing several prizes. She also participated in two boat actions and two ship actions that won her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1811 after suffering severe damage in a storm.
HMS Hazard was a 16-gun Royal Navy Cormorant-class ship-sloop built by Josiah & Thomas Brindley at Frindsbury, Kent, and launched in 1794. She served in the French Revolutionary Wars and throughout the Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes, and participated in a notable ship action against the French frigate Topaze, as well as in several other actions and campaigns, three of which earned her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. Hazard was sold in 1817.
HMS Lowestoffe was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Built during the latter part of the Seven Years' War, she went on to see action in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary War, and served often in the Caribbean. A young Horatio Nelson served aboard her shortly after passing his lieutenant's examination.
HMS Hermes was a 20-gun Hermes-class sixth-rate flush-decked sloop-of-war built in Milford Dockyard to the lines of the ex-French Bonne Citoyenne. She was destroyed in 1814 to prevent her falling into American hands after grounding during her unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer on Mobile Point outside Mobile, Alabama.
HMS Lark was a 16-gun ship sloop of the Cormorant class, launched in 1794 at Northfleet. She served primarily in the Caribbean, where she took a number of prizes, some after quite intensive action. Lark foundered off San Domingo in August 1809, with the loss of her captain and almost all her crew.
HMS Hornet was a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant class in the Royal Navy, ordered 18 February 1793, built by Marmaduke Stalkart and launched 3 February 1794 at Rotherhithe. Hornet saw most of her active duty during the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Napoleonic Wars she served for about six years as a hospital ship before being laid up in 1811 and sold in 1817.
HMS Ballahoo was the first of the Royal Navy's Ballahoo-class schooners, vessels 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 1804. She patrolled primarily in the Leeward Islands, taking several small prizes, before an American privateer captured her in 1814 during the War of 1812.
HMS Eclair was a French Navy schooner launched in 1799 and captured in 1801. The British took her into service under her French name and armed her with twelve 12-pounder carronades. In 1804 she engaged in a noteworthy, albeit indecisive single ship action with the 22-gun French privateer Grande Decide. In 1809 she was renamed Pickle. In December 1812 she and three other small British vessels engaged the French 40-gun frigate Gloire in another noteworthy and indecisive action. She was sold in 1818.
HMS Guachapin was a brig, the former Spanish letter of marque Guachapin, launched at Bayonne in 1800, which the British captured early in 1800 and took into service with the Royal Navy. Under the British flag she captured a Spanish privateer larger and better-armed than herself. She also served at the captures of the islands of St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Tobago, and St. Lucia, and of Surinam. She served at Antigua as a guard ship but was wrecked in 1811. She was then salved and sold.
Michael Fitton (1766–1852) was an English lieutenant in the Royal Navy. During his career he made some 30 to 40 captures of enemy, chiefly French, vessels. Despite his notable victory over the French privateer Superbe in 1806, for which he received various honours, including a medal, and his earlier successes, Fitton never received a promotion beyond the rank of lieutenant. Not only did he lack a powerful patron but there is some suggestion that he may, by injudicious conduct early in his naval career, have made a powerful enemy. He died in 1852.
The 20-gun French corvette Hussard was launched in 1799 and the British captured her that same year when they captured Suriname. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Surinam, as there was already an HMS Hussar. The Dutch captured her in 1803, naming her Suriname, but the British recaptured her in 1807 and sent her to Britain. Thereafter she never again served on active duty. She disappeared from the Navy lists in 1809, but her fate is unknown.
HMS Merlin was one of the two original Merlin-class sloops that served the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. She was launched in 1796 and was broken up in 1803. Her greatest accomplishment was her role as the leading vessel in a motley flotilla of local vessels that defeated a Spanish attack on the British colonists in Honduras at the Battle of St. George's Caye. She later captured a number of small merchant vessels in the West Indies before returning to Britain, where she was broken up.
HMS Garland was a schooner that the Royal Navy purchased in the West Indies in 1798 to act as a tender to Prince of Wales, the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief on the Leeward Islands station. Garland captured a privateer of greater force than herself, as well as two small prizes. She was sold in March 1803, during the Peace of Amiens.
HMS Alexander was the French privateer schooner Alexandre that the British Royal Navy captured in 1796, purchased, and took into service as a ship's tender to HMS Prince of Wales, and later a troopship. She was the victor in two single-ship actions against opponents of equal or greater force. The Navy sold her in 1802.