For other ships with the same name, see HMS Jupiter.
Naval battle off the coast of Lisbon, 20 October 1778. The French ship Triton against the British ship Jupiter and the frigate Medea. Painting by Pierre-Julien Gilbert
Built in Rotherhithe, Jupiter was launched in 1778. Her trial copper sheathed hull featured the new technical breakthrough of protecting her iron bolts by the application of thick paper between the copper plates and the hull. This innovation she trialled successfully.[1]
Service history
On 20 October 1778, Jupiter, together with the frigate Medea fought an indecisive action with the 64-gun French Triton. Jupiter lost 3 killed with 7 men wounded.[2][3] On 1 April 1779, under the command of Francis Reynolds, Jupiter assisted Delight after Delight captured the French 20-gun privateer Jean Bart.[4][5]
On 2 October 1779, Jupiter captured two French cutters, each of 14 guns and 120 men. The Royal Navy took both into service essentially under their existing names.[6] One was Mutin, under the command of Chevalier de Roquefeuil. She was pierced for 16 guns but carried 14, either 4 or 6-pounders.[7] The other was Pilote, under the command of Chevalier de Clonard. She carried the same armament as Mutine (or Mutin).[8] The cutters surrendered after an engagement that left Mutin dismasted.[7]Jupiter shared the prize money with HMSGlory and Apollo,[9]Crescent,[10] and Milford.[11]Jupiter fought at the battle of Porto Praya in 1781.
On 25 April 1799 Jupiter, Adamant, and Tremendous recaptured Chance as she lay at anchor under the guns of the battery at Connonies-Point, Île de France. The French frigate Forte had captured Chance, which was carrying a cargo of rice, in Balasore Roads. The squadron also recaptured another ship that a French privateer had captured in the Bay of Bengal. Lastly, after the French had driven the American ship Pacific onshore at River Noir, Adamant, Jupiter, and Tremendous came on the scene and sent in their boats, which removed much of Pacific's cargo of bale goods and sugar. The British then set Pacific on fire.[13]
On 17 September 1801 Jupiter arrived at Cape Town from Rio de Janeiro, together with Hindostan and Euphrosyne, after a voyage of about a month. Lion had escorted a convoy of East Indiamen bound for China to Rio, together with Hindostan. They had arrived there on 1 August. Captain George Losack, of Jupiter, decided to accompany the convoy eastward until they were unlikely to encounter some Spanish and French vessels known to be cruising off Brazil.[14]
Jupiter shared with Diomede, Hindostan, and Braave in the capture of Union on 27 May 1803.[15]
On 27 February 1806, an accidental fire broke out aboard Jupiter while she was at Port Royal, Jamaica. She was scuttled to extinguish the fire.[16] She was subsequently refloated, repaired, and returned to service.
On 18 April 1807 she sailed from Portsmouth as escort to a fleet of East Indiamen bound for India and China, though she would not accompany them all the way. On 15 June they were at 5°10′N22°30′W / 5.167°N 22.500°W / 5.167; -22.500 "all well". However, Surat Castle had become leaky and it was determined that she should go into a port.[17]
Fate
Jupiter was wrecked on 10 December 1808 in Vigo Bay on the coast of Spain, but all her crew were saved.[18] A transport was lost there at about the same time.
Captain the Honourable Henry Barker approached Vigo Harbour towards the end of dusk. He decided to anchor as close to the harbour as possible in order to be able to come in early the next morning. As she was coming into position she hit a reef. Attempts to lighten her by throwing shot and stores overboard had no effect, and she was taking on so much water the fear was that if she were heaved off she would sink. Over the next two days stores were removed. She then fell on her starboard side and was left a wreck. The subsequent court martial admonished Captain Barker to be more careful in the future.[19]
Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Active or HMS Actif, with a thirteenth currently under construction:
Jean Bart may refer to one of the following ships of the French Navy or privateers named in honour of Jean Bart, a French naval commander and privateer.
Surveillante was an Iphigénie-class 32-gun frigate of the French Navy. She took part in the Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War, where she became famous for her battle with HMS Quebec; in 1783, she brought the news that the war was over to America. She later took part in the French Revolutionary Wars, and was eventually scuttled during the Expédition d'Irlande after sustaining severe damage in a storm. The wreck was found in 1979 and is now a memorial.
Sixteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Alert, while another was planned:
Nine ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Racehorse:
HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, built in the Grove Street shipyard of Adams & Barnard at Deptford in 1773. The French captured her in 1798 but the British recaptured her in 1803. She was broken up in 1810.
The action of 11 September 1779 was a minor naval engagement that took place off Charles Town in the War of the American Independence between the French Navy and the Royal Navy. The battle ended with the capture of the British post ship Ariel by Amazone.
Nine ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Zephyr after Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind:
Iphigénie was a 32-gun Iphigénie-class frigate of the French Navy, and the lead ship of her class. She was briefly in British hands after the Anglo-Spanish capture of Toulon in August 1793 but the French recaptured her December. The Spanish captured her in 1795 and her subsequent fate is unknown.
HMS Crescent was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Crescent was launched in 1779. The French captured her in 1781. She was wrecked in 1786.
HMS Pomona was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Pomona was first commissioned in September 1778 under the command of Captain William Waldegrave.
HMS Milford was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built at Milford by Richard Chitty and launched in 1759. She was sold for breaking at Woolwich on 17 May 1785.
HMS Sprightly was a 10-gun cutter of the Royal Navy, built to a design by John Williams, and the name ship of her two-vessel class of cutters. She was launched in 1778. The French captured and scuttled her off the Andulasian coast in 1801.
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.
Pandour was a 14-gun brig of the French Navy launched in 1780 as a cutter. The Royal Navy captured her in December 1795 and took her into service as HMS Pandora, but she foundered in June 1797.
Mutin was a 14-gun cutter of the French Navy, the lead ship of the Mutin class of five naval cutters. She was launched in 1778 and the Royal Navy captured her the next year, taking her into service as HMS Mutine. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Pigmy in 1798. She was lost in 1805.
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 Pilote was a cutter launched for the French Navy at Dunkirk in 1778. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1779 and took her into service under her existing name. It sold her in 1799.
HMS Alert was a 10-gun cutter launched at Dover in 1777 that was converted to a sloop in the same year.
HMS True Briton was a cutter the Royal Navy purchased in 1778. In 1779 she participated in a successful operation that resulted in the capture of a French frigate and several other naval vessels. The French Navy captured True Briton in 1780. She became the mercantile Tartare. The Royal Navy recaptured her and recommissioned her as HMS True Briton. The Navy laid her up in 1783 and sold her in 1785.
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