Nonsuch was commissioned in August 1775 as a guardship at Plymouth. She was fitted for the role in December 1776, but sailed for North America on 23 March 1777.[2]
American War of Independence
On 16 January 1777, Nonsuch captured the Rhode Island privateer sloop Charming Sally.[4]
On 7 July 1780 Nonsuch, under the command of Sir James Wallace, captured the brig-rigged cutterHussard of Saint Malo.[7]Hussard was armed with eighteen 6-pounder guns.[8] The Royal Navy took her into service as HMSEcho.
On 14 July, Nonsuch captured the 26-gun frigateBelle Poule off the Loire. The Royal Navy took Belle Poule into service under her existing name.
In April 1781, Nonsuch was part of Admiral George Darby's relief fleet during the Great Siege of Gibraltar. On 14 May 1781, on the homeward voyage, while scouting ahead, Nonsuch chased and brought to action the French 74-gun Actif, hoping to detain her until some others of the fleet came up. However, Actif was able to repulse Nonsuch, causing her to suffer 26 men killed and 64 wounded, and continued on to Brest.
Nonsuch was fourth in line attacking the French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782) under command of Captain Truscott.[9]
Late in 1782 Nonsuch and Zebra escorted a fleet from Georgia "with the principal inhabitants, their Negroes, and their Effects" to Jamaica.[10]
Floating battery Between February and May 1794 Nonsuch was at Chatham, being cut down and fitted as a floating battery. Captain Bill Douglas commissioned her in March. In June she was at Jersey under Captain Philippe d'Auvergne, Prince of Bouillon, and Senior Officer of Gunboats, in charge of a small flotilla of useless gunvessels, including Eagle, Lion, Repulse, Scorpion, and Tiger. (The Navy disposed of most of them within a year or so.) Nonsuch was paid off in December. In February 1795 Captain William Mitchell recommissioned her in the Humber at Hull as a floating battery.
Mitchell's successor, in August, was Captain Henry Blackwood. Nonsuch's logs state she arrived in the Humber at the end of June 1795, having sailed up from Chatham under Blackwood's command. By 2 July she was in a permanent mooring at Hull Roads.[3]
In April 1796 Captain Robert Dudley Oliver replaced Blackwood, only to be replaced in October 1797 by Captain Isaac Woolley, who commanded her until 1799.[2]
On 30 July 1797, the whalerBlenheim, William Mitchenson, master, arrived back at Hull from Davis Strait. As she arrived Nonsuch fired a shot to signal Blenheim to come to. Mitchenson ignored that signal, and several other shots. When Blenheim arrived at the port's haven, boats from Nonsuch, Redoubt, and Nautilus surrounded her. As the boats approached with the intent to board, Blenheim's crew pelted them with spears, capstan bars, handspikes, other offensive weapons, and also several large iron shot. The boats withdrew, but not before three men from Nonsuch were wounded, two mortally. Blenheim's crew got to shore and absconded. The government promised to pardon all of the members of the crew other than those that had actually murdered the two men from Nonsuch.[11] The reason the whalers resisted is that they wished to avoid impressment by the Royal Navy. The crew of out-bound merchantmen and whalers were generally exempt from the Press; the crew of returning vessels, however, were subject to impressment.
A fictitious 74 gun HMS Nonsuch is the flagship in Forester's "Commodore Hornblower". In his novel "Lord Hornblower", set at a later date, she is Captain Bush's ship and supports Hornblower when he takes Le Havre and acts as governor, until Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo.
HMS Albion was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was built by Adam Hayes at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 16 May 1763, having been adapted from a design of the old 90-gun ship Neptune which had been built in 1730. She was the first ship to be called HMS Albion. She was the first of a series of ships built to the same lines, which became known as the Albion-class ship of the line.
Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Active or HMS Actif, with a thirteenth currently under construction:
HMS Thunderer was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in 1783. She carried 74-guns, being classified as a third rate. During her service she took part in several prominent naval battles of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; including the Glorious First of June, the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar.
Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand, Comte de Linois was a French admiral who served in the French Navy during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. He commanded the combined Franco-Spanish fleet during the Algeciras Campaign in 1801, winning the First Battle of Algeciras before losing the Second Battle of Algeciras. He then led an unsuccessful campaign against British trade in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea in 1803, being defeated by a harmless fleet of the East India Company during the Battle of Pulo Aura and ending his cruise and sea-going career being bested in battle by John Warren in the action of 13 March 1806. Following the Bourbon restoration, Linois was appointed Governor of Guadeloupe. He supported Napoleon during the Hundred Days and so, on his return to France, he was forced to resign and was court martialled. Although acquitted, he was placed in retirement and never served again.
HMS Renown was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was to have been named HMS Royal Oak, but the name was changed to Renown on 15 February 1796. She was launched at Deptford Wharf on 2 May 1798 and served in 1800-1801 as the flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren, initially in the English Channel.
Belle Poule was a French frigate of the Dédaigneuse class, designed by Léon-Michel Guignace. She is most famous for her duel with the British frigate HMS Arethusa on 17 June 1778, which began the French involvement in the American War of Independence.
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 Robust was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by John Barnard and launched on 25 October 1764 at Harwich. She was the first vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name.
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.
HMS Bedford was a Royal Navy 74-gun third rate. This ship of the line was launched on 27 October 1775 at Woolwich.
HMS Ramillies was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 12 July 1785 at Rotherhithe.
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.
The Foudroyant was an 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was later captured and served in the Royal Navy as the Third Rate HMS Foudroyant.
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 Leith, also known as HM hired armed ship Leith, was launched in 1744 or 1746 in the British "Plantations", more specifically, the colony of Maryland. From 1764 to 1777 she was a Greenlandman, that is a whaler, in the waters east of Greenland. Between 1777 and 1782 she served the Royal Navy as a transport and hired armed naval ship. She was last listed in 1783.
HMS Jupiter was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth-rate ship of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned thirty years. She was also one of the fastest ships in the Royal Navy as shown by her attempt to capture the cutter Eclipse under Nathaniel Fanning.
Blenheim may have been launched in 1776 in Philadelphia as Britannia. By 1777 she was the Massachusetts-based privateer American Tartar and had taken several prizes. She had also participated in an inconclusive single-ship action with a British merchantman. The British Royal Navy captured American Tartar late in 1777 and she became HMS Hinchinbrook. The Royal Navy sold her in 1783 and she became the West Indiaman Blenheim. In 1785-86 she became a Greenland whaler and she continued in that trade until two French frigates captured and burnt her in 1806.
HMS Royalist was launched in 1807. She captured many privateers and letters of marque, most French, but also some from Denmark and the United States. Her crew twice were awarded the Naval General Service Medal. She was instrumental in the capture of a French frigate. The Royal Navy sold her in 1819. She then became a whaler, making three complete voyages. She was condemned after a mishap while on her fourth.
Triton was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy designed by François Coulomb the Younger. She took part in the Seven Years' War and in the War of American Independence.
HMS Redoubt was the mercantile Rover, which the Royal Navy purchased in March 1793 on the outbreak of war with France. The Navy fitted her as a floating battery. It sold her in 1802.
References
Demerliac, Alain (1996). La Marine de Louis XVI: Nomenclature des Navires Français de 1774 à 1792. Éditions Ancre.
Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line – Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN0-85177-252-8.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN978-1861762467.
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