HMS Harrier was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop launched in 1804. She took part in several notable actions before she was lost in March 1809, presumed foundered.
Harrier was commissioned in November 1804 under Commander William Woodridge, who sailed her for the East Indies on 24 December 1804. In 1805 Commander Edward Ratsey replaced Woodridge.[1]
On 2 August 1805, Harrier fought the 40-gun Sémillante, Captain Léonard-Bernard Motard, in the San Bernardino Strait off San Jacinto, Philippines, together with the Phaeton, under Captain John Wood. After exchanges of fire first with Harrier and then with Phaeton, Sémillante took refuge under the guns of a shore battery. Unable to dislodge her, the two British vessels eventually sailed off, each having suffered two men wounded. Sémillante was reported to have suffered 13 killed and 36 wounded. After resupplying at San Jacinto, Sémillante intended to sail for Mexico in March 1805 to fetch specie for the Philippines; the encounter with Phaeton and Harrier foiled the plan. Motard returned to the Indian Ocean, operating for the next three years against British shipping from Île de France.[2]
In 1806 Lieutenant Edward Troubridge took command. On 4 July Harrier was in company with Greyhound, under the command of Captain Edward Elphinstone, when they captured and destroyed the Dutch East India Company’s brig Christian Elizabeth. She was armed with eight guns and carried a crew of 80 men. Christian Elizabeth was sheltering under the guns of Fort Manado.[3]
Greyhound and Harrier then sailed across the Molucca Sea to the island of Tidon in the Celebes. There, on 6 July, they captured another enemy ship, Belgica. She was armed with 12 guns and had a crew of 32 men.[3]
Greyhound and Harrier continued their cruise westward until the evening of 25 July when, in the Salayer Strait, they sighted four ships. The next morning they were able to bring the Dutch squadron to action.[3]
After 40 minutes of an exchange of fire the Dutch frigate Pallasstruck to Greyhound. Harrier engaged the two merchant vessels, Victoria and Batavier, which struck to her. The fourth Dutch vessel, the corvette William, which had not been engaged, escaped. Casualties on Pallas were heavy, with eight men killed outright and 32 wounded, including her captain and three of his lieutenants. Six of the wounded later died, including the Dutch captain. There were also four men killed on the East Indiamen and seven wounded, one of whom died later. British losses by contrast were light, with one man killed and eight wounded on Greyhound and just three wounded on Harrier.[3]
Pallas was carrying the Mr. Robson, the chief mate of Sydney, which on 20 May 1806 had wrecked off New Guinea. Robson and a party of lascars had reached Ambonya where the governor had treated them with great kindness and hospitality, and put them on Pallas.[4]
Prize crews took the three captured ships to Port Cornwallis on South Andaman Island. Troubridge received promotion to commander in September,[1] and assumed command of HMS Celebes, the former Pallas.[5] Commander William Wilbrahim replaced Troubridge in Harrier.
Loss of H.M. ship's Blenheim and Java in a hurricane off Rodriguez; the brig Harrier escaping, February 1807. Thomas Buttersworth
Between 1 and 3 February 1807 Harrier endured a hurricane of Madagascar on her way to the Cape of Good Hope. She logged sightings of Blenheim and Java, neither of which was ever seen again.[6]Blenheim was the flagship of Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge, father of Edward Troubridge. One of the passengers on Blenheim was Elphinstone, who had been recalled to Britain. Harrier herself reached the Cape of Good Hope, but not without difficulty, and refitted there.[6]
In 1807, Commander George Pigot replaced Wilbrahim in command of Harrier. Pigot was superseded in turn by Commander Justice Finley (acting), at the Cape of Good Hope.[1] Finley was captain of Harrier on 7 August 1807 when she captured the Helena.[7]
Harrier, Laurel, and Grampus shared in the capture of the Jeune Laure on 5 March 1808.[8]
Commander John James Ridge was captain of Harrier on 19 October 1808 when she captured the French ship Soeuffleur.[9]Harrier, Nereide and Leopard shared in the capture on 5 January 1809 of Goende Monche.[10]
Fate
On 13 and 14 March 1809, Harrier was in company with her sister shipRacehorse, about 1,000 nautical miles (1,900km; 1,200mi) from Rodrigues. Harrier fell behind and was never seen again.[11] She was presumed to have foundered with all hands.[12]
Rear Admiral Sir Edward Thomas Troubridge, 2nd Baronet, was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served in the French Revolutionary, Napoleonic and War of 1812. He later served for fifteen years as the member of parliament for Sandwich, Kent.
HMS Phaeton was a 38-gun, Minerva-class fifth rate of Britain's Royal Navy. This frigate was most noted for her intrusion into Nagasaki harbour in 1808. John Smallshaw built Phaeton in Liverpool between 1780 and 1782. She participated in numerous engagements during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars during which service she captured many prizes. Francis Beaufort, inventor of the Beaufort Wind-Scale, was a lieutenant on Phaeton when he distinguished himself during a successful cutting out expedition. Phaeton sailed to the Pacific in 1805, and returned in 1812. She was finally sold on 26 March 1828.
HMS Blenheim was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Israel Pownoll and launched on 5 July 1761 at Woolwich. In 1797 she participated in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1801 Blenheim was razeed to a third rate. She disappeared off Madagascar with all hands in February 1807.
HMS Reindeer was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Samuel & Daniel Brent at Rotherhithe and was launched in 1804. She was built of fir, which made for more rapid construction at the expense of durability. Reindeer fought in the Napoleonic Wars before succumbing in 1814 to the guns of USS Wasp during the War of 1812.
The Sémillante was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy and the lead ship of her class. She was involved in a number of multi-vessel actions against the Royal Navy, particularly in the Indian Ocean. She captured a number of East Indiamen before she became so damaged that the French disarmed her and turned her into a merchant vessel. The British captured her and broke her up in 1809.
HMS Mermaid was a 32-gun Active-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1784 and broken up in 1815. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served in the West Indies, the Channel, and the Mediterranean. During the Napoleonic Wars she first served in the Americas, but from early 1811 on, she was armed en flute and served as a troopship until she was broken up.
HMS Manly was an Archer-class gun-brig launched in 1804. During her career first the Dutch captured her, then the British recaptured her, then the Danes captured her, and finally the British recaptured her again. The British renamed her HMS Bold after her recapture in 1813. She was sold out of service in 1814.
Linois's expedition to the Indian Ocean was a commerce raiding operation launched by the French Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. Contre-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Durand Linois was ordered to the Indian Ocean in his flagship Marengo in March 1803 accompanied by a squadron of three frigates, shortly before the end of the Peace of Amiens. When war between Britain and France broke out in September 1803, Marengo was at Pondicherry with the frigates, but escaped a British squadron sent to intercept it and reached Isle de France. The large distances between naval bases in the Indian Ocean and the limited resources available to the British commanders in the region made it difficult to concentrate sufficient forces to combat a squadron of this size, and Linois was subsequently able to sustain his campaign for three years. From Isle de France, Linois and his frigates began a series of attacks on British commerce across the Eastern Indian Ocean, specifically targeting the large convoys of East Indiamen that were vital to the maintenance of trade within the British Empire and to the British economy. Although he had a number of successes against individual merchant ships and the small British trading post of Bencoolen, the first military test of Linois squadron came at the Battle of Pulo Aura on 15 February 1804. Linois attacked the undefended British China Fleet, consisting of 16 valuable East Indiamen and 14 other vessels, but failed to press his military superiority and withdrew without capturing a single ship.
Minerve was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She operated in the Mediterranean during the French Revolutionary Wars. Her crew scuttled her at Saint-Florent to avoid capture when the British invaded Corsica in 1794, but the British managed to raise her and recommissioned her in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS St Fiorenzo.
Corona was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the Italian Navy. The French built her in Venice in 1807 for the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. The British captured Corona at the Battle of Lissa and took her into the Royal Navy as HMS Daedalus. She grounded and sank off Ceylon in 1813 while escorting a convoy.
The action of 26 July 1806 was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars fought off the southern coast of the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies. During the battle, a small British squadron attacked and defeated a Dutch force defending a valuable convoy, which was also captured. The British force—consisting of the frigate HMS Greyhound and brig-sloop HMS Harrier under the command of Captain Edward Elphinstone—was initially wary of the Dutch, mistaking the Dutch East Indiaman merchant ship Victoria for a ship of the line. Closer observation revealed the identity of the Dutch vessels the following day and Elphinstone led his frigate against the leading Dutch warship Pallas while Harrier engaged the merchant vessels and forced them to surrender. Only the corvette William escaped, taking no part in the engagement.
The Java campaign of 1806–1807 was a minor campaign during the Napoleonic Wars by British Royal Navy forces against a naval squadron of the Kingdom of Holland, a client state of the French Empire, based on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies. Seeking to eliminate any threat to valuable British merchant convoys passing through the Malacca Straits, Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew determined in early 1806 that the Dutch naval forces based at Java, which included several ships of the line and three frigates, had to be defeated to ensure British dominance in the region. Lacking the forces to effect an invasion of the Dutch colony, Pellew instead sought to isolate and blockade the Dutch squadron based at Batavia in preparation for raids specifically targeting the Dutch ships with his main force.
HMS Terpsichore was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the last years of the American War of Independence, but did not see action until the French Revolutionary Wars. She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in a career that spanned forty-five years.
HMS Scorpion was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1803. She was the first of the class to be built since the launching of Cruizer in 1797. Scorpion had a long and active career during the Napoleonic Wars, earning her crews three clasps to the Naval General Service Medal when the Admiralty authorized it in 1847, two for single-ship actions. She also took a number of prizes. Scorpion was sold in 1819.
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 Celebes was the Dutch or Batavian Republic frigate Pallas, under the command of Captain N.S. Aalbers, that the frigate HMS Greyhound and brig-sloop HMS Harrier captured on 26 July 1806 in the East Indies.
The French brig Voltigeur was a Palinure-class brig launched in 1804. The British captured her in 1806 and renamed her HMS Pelican. She was sold in 1812.
HMS Venus was the name ship of the 36-gun Venus-class fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1758 and served for more than half a century until 1809. She was reduced from 36 to 32 guns in 1792. She was sold in 1822.
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.
Lucy Maria or Lucy and Maria was launched at Calcutta in 1801. She made one voyage to England carrying rice from Bengal on behalf of the British East India Company (EIC). She was seized at Amboyna in 1804 and then sailed as the Dutch ship Victoria. The British recaptured her in 1806 and new owners renamed her Troubridge and later renamed her Lucy Maria. As Troubridge she served as a transport for two invasions, that of Mauritius in 1810 and Java in 1811. She was broken up in 1821.
References
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN0-948864-30-3.
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