HMS Pegasus was a 28-gun Enterprise-classsixth rate. This frigate was launched in 1779 at Deptford and sold in 1816. Pegasus had a relatively uneventful career and is perhaps best known for the fact that her captain from 1786 to 1789 was Prince William Henry, the future King William IV. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham; she was sold in 1816.
Pegasus was commissioned in May 1779 under Captain John Bazely and attached to George Rodney's fleet for the relief of the Great Siege of Gibraltar. She therefore was present at both of Rodney's actions in the campaign to relieve the fortress, participating in the seizure of a Spanish armaments convoy off Cape Finisterre on 8 January 1780 and subsequently fighting at the Battle of Cape St Vincent eight days later.[2]Pegasus continued on with Rodney to Gibraltar and then to the West Indies where she participated in the inconclusive Battle of Martinique in April 1780. Bazely carried the dispatches of the battle back to Britain and was soon given command of Apollo.[3]
Pegasus sailed again, now under Captain John Stanhope, for the Leeward Islands in January 1781. She returned home in August, but subsequently returned to the Caribbean. On 23 January 1783 she captured the Allegeance, a former Royal Navy sloop that the French were using as a transport and that was carrying 200 troops.[4]Pegasus paid off into ordinary in April 1783.
In 1786 Henry Harvey became captain of the recommissioned Pegasus for service on the North America station but was disappointed to discover that his first lieutenant was Prince William Henry. The issue was that the Admiralty expected Harvey to turn over the captaincy to his subordinate as soon as the ship was at sea. Controlling his disappointment, Harvey conducted the affair with "such discretion as secured to him the lasting friendship of His Royal Highness".[5] Within weeks, Harvey had been transferred to HMS Rose and aboard her joined Pegasus in peacetime maneuvers off the North American station until Rose was paid-off in 1789.
Prince William Henry in dress uniform painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee, c.1800.
From 1786 to 1788, Pegasus, under Prince William Henry, was largely assigned to patrol the east coast of British North America, as well as the West Indies. In late 1786, Pegasus was stationed in the West Indies under Horatio Nelson, who wrote of Prince William Henry, "In his professional line, he is superior to two-thirds, I am sure, of the [Naval] list; and in attention to orders, and respect to his superior officer, I hardly know his equal."[6]
Prince William Henry's First Lieutenant was William Hargood, who the prince had brought with him. Other officers or crew aboard Pegasus at this time who would rise in rank were Thomas Byam Martin, John Pasco, and Charles Rowley. The prince was given a mentor, Isaac Schomberg, but that did not go well and required Nelson's intervention to resolve. Nelson also arranged for the transfer of William Johnstone Hope, who too had been appointed to Pegasus but had failed to get on with the prince. Pegasus returned to Plymouth and was decommissioned in March 1788.
Herbert Sawyer was promoted to Post-Captain in January 1789, and took command of Pegasus to begin her next commission. He served aboard her on the North American Station, operating off Newfoundland. On 8 July 1790 she grounded on Annet, within the Isles of Scilly but refloated on the flood tide undamaged.[7]
French Revolutionary Wars
On 14 July 1793 Pegasus sailed with the Channel fleet from St. Helen's. On 18 July she was west of the Scilly Isle. On 31 July she briefly sighted but was unable to close the French fleet, so she returned to Torbay on 10 August. Thirteen days later she was with the Channel Fleet, escorting the Newfoundland trade and West Indian convoys while they were in home waters. By 23 October she was sailing in search of the French fleet and squadrons. On 18 November the Fleet in a brief skirmish with a French squadron; by mid-December the fleet had returned to Spithead.
HMS Defence at the Battle of the Glorious 1st of June 1794, by Nicholas Pocock
In May–June 1794 the Channel Fleet fought the Battle of the Glorious First of June, during which it captured six ships of the line and sank a seventh. On 13 June the fleet arrived back in home ports. While under the command of Robert Barlow, who had been posted to Pegasus, she had served as a repeating ship for Admiral Howe's signals at the battle. Barlow transferred to the frigate Aquilon as a reward. At the battle, Pegasus had as passenger Nicholas Pocock, the maritime artist.
On 14 February 1795 the Channel fleet sailed from Torbay for a brief cruise and to see various convoys safe out of the Channel.
In May 1796 news reached Admiral Adam Duncan, operating in the North Sea,[8] that a Dutch squadron consisting of the 36-gun Argo and three brigs and a cutter had departed Flickerve, Norway, bound for the Texel.[9] Duncan despatched a squadron of his own to intercept them, consisting of the frigate Phœnix, under Captain Lawrence William Halsted, the 50-gun HMSLeopard, Pegasus and the brig-sloopHMSSylph, all under the overall command of Halsted.[9][10] The British intercepted the Dutch at 5am on 12 May, with Phoenix and Leopard chasing Argo, while Pegasus and Sylph made after the brigs.[9][10]Leopard eventually fell some way behind, and consequently it was Phoenix alone that brought Argo to the action of 12 May 1796.[9] Meanwhile, Pegasus and Sylph forced two of the brigs aground and took the small vessel accompanying the Dutch, which turned out to be a former British vessel, Duke of York.[10] They then captured the third brig, the 16-gun Mercury.[10] The Royal Navy took both Argo and Mercury into service, the Argo becoming Janus while Mercury became HMSHermes.[10]
In 1800, under Capt. John Pengelly, Pegasus was fitted out as a troopship, armed en flûte. Between 8 March and 2 September 1801 Pegasus participated in the siege of Alexandria. Because Pegasus served in the navy's Egyptian campaign, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 to all surviving claimants.[lower-alpha 1]
Napoleonic Wars
In 1803 she was in the Mediterranean. By May 1805 she was a guardship at Harwich. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham.
Fate
Pegasus was sold in 1816.
Notes, citations, and references
Notes
↑ A first-class share of the prize money awarded in April 1823 was worth £34 2s 4d; a fifth-class share, that of a seaman, was worth 3s 11½d. The amount was small as the total had to be shared between 79 vessels and the entire army contingent.[11]
HMS Thunderer was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in 1783. It carried 74-guns, being classified as a third rate. During its service it 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.
HMS Bedford was a Royal Navy 74-gun third rate. This ship of the line was launched on 27 October 1775 at Woolwich.
HMS Brunswick was a 74-gun third rate ship-of-the-line of the Royal Navy, launched on 30 April 1790 at Deptford. She was first commissioned in the following month under Sir Hyde Parker for the Spanish Armament but was not called into action. When the Russian Armament was resolved without conflict in August 1791, Brunswick took up service as a guardship in Portsmouth Harbour. She joined Richard Howe's Channel Fleet at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War and was present at the battle on Glorious First of June where she fought a hard action against the French 74-gun Vengeur du Peuple. Brunswick was in a small squadron under William Cornwallis that encountered a large French fleet in June 1795. The British ships successfully retreated into the Atlantic through a combination of good seamanship, good fortune and deceiving the enemy.
Admiral Sir Henry Harvey KB was a long-serving officer of the British Royal Navy during the second half of the eighteenth century. Harvey participated in numerous naval operations and actions and especially distinguished himself at the Glorious First of June in command of HMS Ramillies. His career took him all over the world, particularly on the North American station and in the West Indies where he commanded numerous ships and, later in his career, squadrons during the course of three different wars. Harvey was a member of a distinguished naval family, his brother was killed in action in 1794, three of his sons entered the navy and one of them was later raised to admiral himself.
HMS Phoenix was a 36-gun Perseverance-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The shipbuilder George Parsons built her at Bursledon and launched her on 15 July 1783. She served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was instrumental in the events leading up to the battle of Trafalgar. Phoenix was involved in several single-ship actions, the most notable occurring on 10 August 1805 when she captured the French frigate Didon, which was more heavily armed than her. She was wrecked, without loss of life, off Smyrna in 1816.
Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock to warrant being taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.
HMS Argo was a 44-gun fifth-rate Roebuck-class ship of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1781 from Howdon Dock. The French captured her in 1783, but 36 hours later the British recaptured her. She then distinguished herself in the French Revolutionary Wars by capturing several prizes, though she did not participate in any major actions. She also served in the Napoleonic Wars. She was sold in 1816.
Admiral Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Adamant was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate warship of the British 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.
The action of 24 October 1793 was a minor naval engagement during the first year of the French Revolutionary Wars. While cruising in the Northern Bay of Biscay, the British Royal Navy frigate HMS Thames, under Captain James Cotes, encountered the much larger French frigate Uranie, under Captain Jean-François Tartu. The ships engaged, with each suffering severe damage until they separated after nearly four hours of continual combat. Cotes ordered his crew to make hasty repairs, intending to resume the battle, but Uranie's crew, with their captain dead, slipped away while Thames was unable to manoeuvre. At 16:00, with repairs on Thames ongoing, a French squadron of three frigates and a brig, under Captain Zacharie Allemand, arrived, firing on Thames as they approached. Outnumbered, Cotes surrendered his ship to Allemand, who commended Cotes on his resistance to the far larger Uranie.
The action of 22 August 1795 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars between a squadron of four British Royal Navy frigates and two frigates and a cutter from the Batavian Navy. The engagement was fought off the Norwegian coastal island of Eigerøya, then in Danish Norway, the opposing forces engaged in protecting their respective countries' trade routes to the Baltic Sea. War between Britain and the Batavian Republic began, undeclared, in the spring of 1795 after the Admiralty ordered British warships to intercept Batavian shipping following the conquest of the Dutch Republic by the French Republic in January 1795.
The action of 12 May 1796 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars between a squadron of British Royal Navy frigates and a frigate and four smaller ships of the Batavian Navy. The British squadron had been detached on the previous day from the British North Sea fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan, which was cruising off the Batavian fleet anchorage at the Texel, while the Batavian squadron was returning to the Netherlands from the Norwegian coast where it had been sheltering since suffering defeat at the action of 22 August 1795 the previous year. As the Batavian squadron neared the Batavian coast, the British squadron under Captain Lawrence Halstead attacked.
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Dashwood KCB was a distinguished British officer, who served in the Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. He had a long and prestigious naval career, gaining his own command by the last stages of the French Revolutionary Wars. He took part in a number of famous naval battles during his career, such as the Battle of the Saintes, the Glorious First of June and the Battle of Tory Island, where he received the sword of the French commodore, Jean Bompart. His record also includes extensive operations in the West Indies and the Baltic Sea, followed by the expedition to New Orleans in 1815.
La Réunion was a 36-gun French warship launched in 1786. During the French Revolutionary War she was stationed at Cherbourg and was successfully employed harassing British merchant shipping in the English Channel until the British captured her off the Cotentin Peninsula during the action of 20 October 1793. Renamed HMS Reunion, she served for three years in the Royal Navy helping to counter the threat from the new Batavian Navy, before she was wrecked in the Thames Estuary in December 1796.
HMS Janus was the Dutch fifth-rate Argo, built at the dockyard of the Amsterdam Admiralty, and launched in 1790. HMS Phoenix captured her on 12 May 1796. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Janus. She was a receiving ship by 1798 and in Ordinary by 1807. The Navy sold her in 1811.
HMS Pearl was a fifth-rate, 32-gun British Royal Navy frigate of the Niger-class. Launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1762, she served in British North America until January 1773, when she sailed to England for repairs. Returning to North America in March 1776, to fight in the American Revolutionary War, Pearl escorted the transports which landed troops in Kip's Bay that September. Much of the following year was spent on the Delaware River where she took part in the Battle of Red Bank in October. Towards the end of 1777, Pearl joined Vice-Admiral Richard Howe's fleet in Narragansett Bay and was still there when the French fleet arrived and began an attack on British positions. Both fleets were forced to retire due to bad weather and the action was inconclusive. Pearl was then despatched to keep an eye on the French fleet, which had been driven into Boston.
HMS Triton was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy designed by James Gambier and launched in 1796 at Deptford. Triton was an experimental ship and the only one built to that design; she was constructed out of fir due to wartime supply shortages of more traditional materials and had some unusual features such as no tumblehome. Her namesake was the Greek god Triton, a god of the sea. She was commissioned in June 1796 under Captain John Gore, with whom she would spend the majority of her active service, to serve in the Channel in the squadron of Sir John Warren.
HMS Sylph was a 16-gun Albatross-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy designed by William Rule and launched in 1795 at Deptford Dockyard. Her namesake was the air spirit sylph. She commissioned in August 1795 under Commander John Chambers White, who would have her until the end of 1799. She was later commanded by Charles Dashwood.
HMS Artois was a fifth-rate Artois-class frigate of the Royal Navy, designed by Sir John Henslow and launched in 1794 at Rotherhithe as the lead ship of her class. She served for the majority of her career in the English Channel under the command of Edmund Nagle in the squadrons of Edward Pellew and John Borlase Warren, notably taking part in the action of 21 October 1794 where she captured the 44-gun frigate La Révolutionnaire almost singlehandedly. She participated in a number of other actions and events including the attempted invasion of France in 1795. Artois continued to serve actively on the coast of France in blockade and patrolling roles, taking a large number of ships as prizes, until she was wrecked with no loss of life off Île de Ré on 31 July 1797 while attempting to reconnoitre the harbour of La Rochelle.
HMS Beaulieu was a 40-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down in 1790 as a private enterprise by the shipwright Henry Adams and purchased by the Royal Navy in June of the same year. A well-armed and large ship, Beaulieu was built to the dimensions of a merchant ship and did not have good sailing qualities. Commissioned in January 1793 by Lord Northesk, the frigate was sent to serve on the Leeward Islands Station. She participated in the capture of Martinique in February 1794, and then was similarly present at the capture of Saint Lucia in April. The frigate also took part in the start of the invasion of Guadeloupe. Later in the year the ship's crew was beset by yellow fever and much depleted. Beaulieu was sent to serve on the North America Station to recuperate, returning to the Leeward Islands in 1795. In the following two years the ship found success in prizetaking and briefly took part in more operations at Saint Lucia. She returned to Britain at the end of 1796.
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