Career
Commander George Aldham commissioned Nautilus in April 1804 for the Channel.
On 9 August 1804 Nautilus recaptured the West Indiaman William Heathcote and sent her into Plymouth. The privateer General Augereau had captured her on 4 August in a notable single ship action. [2]
On 23 August Nautilus sent into Plymouth Count Suwaroff, Pondelli, master. Count Suwaroff had been sailing from Petersburg to Corunna. [3]
On 12 September Nautilus detained the American ship Colombe, of Boston, Iday, master. She had been sailing to Dunkirk with tobacco and staves. Colombe arrived at Plymouth the next day. [4]
On 12 November Nautilus detained the Spanish shipEcho, Francisco Barzelo, master. [5]
Commander Aldham received a promotion to post captain on 20 February 1805. Before he left he sent into Plymouth a valuable Spanish ship from the River Plate that arrived on 23 February. The Spanish ship had fallen prey first to a Jersey privateer, and then to the French privateer General Perignon before Nautilus recaptured her. [6] This may have been the vessel Carmella, which had been carrying specie. [7]
Commander John Sykes replaced Aldham on 8 March 1805. On 29 September Nautilus captured Johanna Catharina, and on 3 October Eserance. The Vice Admiralty Court at Gibraltar condemned both. [8]
After the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, Lt. Lapenotiere in HMS Pickle raced Captain Sykes in Nautilus over 1000 miles to England with the news of the victory. Pickle was the first to deliver the dispatches to the Admiralty. Lt. Lapenotiere was awarded the then huge sum of £500 and was promoted to Commander.
Sykes received a promotion to post captain on 22 January 1806 and in February 1806 Commander Edward Palmer replaced Sykes. Palmer sailed Nautilus for the Mediterranean.
In the early morning of 4 May 1806, the boats of HMS Renommee and Nautilus, under the command of Lieutenant Sir William Parker, of Renommee, brought out from under the fire of the guns of the town and tower of Vieja and also from under the fire of more than 100 musketeers, the Spanish naval schooner Giganta. Giganta was armed with two 24-pounders, three 4-pounder long guns, four 4-pounders, and swivel guns. She had a crew of 38 men under the command of Alfirre de Navis Don Juan de Moire. British casualties amounted to four men severely wounded and three lightly wounded; Spanish casualties consisted of one man mortally wounded and nime men severely wounded. There were no immediate fatalities. Captain Sir Thomas Livingstone, of Renommee, recommended that the Navy take Giganta into service at Gibraltar. [9]
On 8 July Nautilus sailed from Gibraltar for Malta.
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.
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 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.
Psyché was a 36-gun vessel built between February 1798 and 1799 at Basse-Indre (Nantes) as a privateer. As a privateer she had an inconclusive but bloody encounter with HMS Wilhelmina of the Royal Navy, commanded by Commander Henry Lambert, off the Indian coast in April 1804. The French then brought her into service in June 1804 as the frigate Psyché. In February 1805 she encountered San Fiorenzo, under the command of the same Henry Lambert, now an acting captain. After a sanguinary engagement of over three hours, Psyché surrendered. The British took her into service as HMS Psyche. In British service she captured several prizes and took part in the capture of Mauritius and in an operation in Java. She was broken up at Ferrol in 1812.
HMS Favourite was a 16-gun Cormorant-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Rotherhithe. The French captured her in 1806 and renamed her Favorite. However, the British recaptured her in 1807 and renamed her HMS Goree. She became a prison ship in 1810 and was broken up in Bermuda in 1817.
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 Curieux was a French corvette launched in September 1800 at Saint-Malo to a design by François Pestel, and carrying sixteen 6-pounder guns. She was commissioned under Capitaine de frégate Joseph-Marie-Emmanuel Cordier. The British captured her in 1804 in a cutting-out action at Martinique. In her five-year British career Curieux captured several French privateers and engaged in two notable single-ship actions, also against privateers. In the first she captured Dame Ernouf; in the second, she took heavy casualties in an indecisive action with Revanche. In 1809 Curieux hit a rock; all her crew were saved but they had to set fire to her to prevent her recapture.
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 Whiting was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner 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 1805. She was a participant at the Battle of Basque Roads. A French privateer captured her at the beginning of the War of 1812, shortly after the Americans had captured and released her in the first naval incident of the war.
During the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, there were two or three vessels known as His Majesty's hired armed cutter Active that served the British Royal Navy. The reason for the uncertainty in the number is that the size of the vessels raises the possibility that the first and second may have been the same vessel.
HMS Moucheron was a French privateer, built in 1799, that the British captured in 1801 and that the British government purchased in 1802 for the Royal Navy. She foundered in 1807 in the Mediterranean without leaving a trace.
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.
The Républicaine française was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, of the Galathée class. The Royal Navy captured her in 1796. The Navy fitted her as a troopship in 1800, but both as a troopship, and earlier as a frigate, she captured several small Spanish and French privateers. She was broken up in 1810.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy employed at least two cutters designated His Majesty's hired armedcutterNile.
HMS Seagull, was a Royal Navy Diligence-class brig-sloop, launched in 1795. During the French Revolutionary Wars she shared in the capture of a number of small French and Dutch privateers. Then early in the Napoleonic Wars she participated in a notable single-ship action before she disappeared without a trace in 1805.
William Heathcote was launched in Liverpool in 1800. She made one voyage voyage as a slave ship before a French privateer captured her in a single-ship action, and the British Royal Navy recaptured her. She became a West Indiaman before she made another slave trading voyage, one of the last such legal voyages. She then became a West Indiaman again, and sailed to Brazil and as a transport. She was wrecked in July 1816.
Général Pérignon was a brig launched at Saint-Malo in February 1804 as a privateer. She captured numerous British merchant vessels over several cruises. In January 1810 the British Royal Navy captured her. She was sold in March 1810 and became a coaster sailing between Plymouth and London under her original name, or as Intention. She was last listed in 1816.
General Augereau was a ketch launched in 1801 and recommissioned in Bayonne in 1803 as a privateer. She made a small number of captures during her first cruise, but then the British Royal Navy captured her in February 1805 during her second cruise. She became a British merchantman, sailing between Cork and Liverpool, and was last listed in 1813.
Harriot was launched at Broadstairs in 1803. She made four voyages as a Guineaman between 1804 and 1807. Following the prohibition in 1807 on British vessels participating in the trans-Atlantic slave trade Harriet became a West Indiaman. A French privateer captured Harriet as Harriet was returning to England from Port au Prince in April 1809.
HMS Wolf was a Merlin-class sloop launched at Dartmouth in 1804. She captured or destroyed four small Spanish or French privateers before she was wrecked on 4 September 1806 in the Bahamas.
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