 HMS Penelope | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | HMS Penelope |
| Builder | Bursledon |
| Launched | 1798 |
| Honours and awards | Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt" [1] |
| Fate | Wrecked in 1815 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | 36-gun fifth rate |
HMS Penelope was a fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1798 and wrecked in 1815.
Under Sir Henry Blackwood, she took part in the battle of 30 March 1800 against the Guillaume Tell, off the coast of Valletta, Malta. The British squadron off Malta comprised the 80-gun Foudroyant, the elderly 74-gun Alexander and 64-gun Lion and the 36-gun Penelope. The squadron wa supported by the brig Minorca. [2]
The Guillaume Tell had put to sea in the evening of 30 March under the command of French Admiral Denis Decrès. She was sighted by crew aboard Penelope slightly before midnight, heading northeast. Blackwood ordered an immediate pursuit and sent word via Minorca to the rest of the fleet. A first broadside was fired at about 1am, but Guillaume Tell continued on her course without returning fire. By dawn, Penelope had again drawn within range of the larger French vessel, and Blackwood ordered a continued raking fire which brought down Guillaume Tell's main and mizzen topmasts. [2]
Penelope's sister ships Lion and Foudroyant hove into view shortly afterward, and engaged Guillaume Tell at close range, disabling her rigging and causing damage to her hull. Both British ships were badly damaged by the time Guillaume Tell struck her colours, and it was Penelope that took the French ship in tow and led her as a prize to Syracuse. Penelope lost two killed and two wounded in the battle. Blackwood was later commended for his gallantry and perseverance in initially engaging the French ship despite her larger size and firepower. [3]
Northumberland, Alexander, Penelope, Bonne Citoyenne, and the brig Vincejo shared in the proceeds of the French polacca Vengeance, captured entering Valletta, Malta on 6 April. [4]
Because Penelope served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (2 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants. [Note 1]
From 1803, Penelope served in the English Channel under William Robert Broughton.
Penelope shared with Moselle and Boadicea in the proceeds of the Jonge Obyna, Smidt, master, on 13 June 1805. [Note 2]
On 30 April 1815, Penelope, [7] under James Galloway, ran aground near the Cap des Rosiers, British North America. [7] She broke apart during the night, killing at least 40 of her crew. Many survivors subsequently froze to death. In all, 216 men drowned or froze to death. Sixty-six men and two women reached Douglastown two days later. The subsequent court-martial placed the master at the bottom of the list of seniority for failing to pay attention to the situation of the ship. Galloway and his First Lieutenant were reprimanded for the breakdown of discipline on board and on shore during the disaster; neither was employed again. One seaman received 500 lashes for insubordination, desertion, and being drunk. Some 48 men took the opportunity to desert. [8]
HMS Ajax was an Ajax-class 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. She was built by John Randall & Co of Rotherhithe and launched on the Thames on 3 March 1798. Ajax participated in the Egyptian operation of 1801, the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805 and the Battle of Trafalgar, before she was lost to a disastrous fire in 1807 during the Dardanelles Operation.
HMS Foudroyant was an 80-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, one of only two British-built 80-gun ships of the period. Foudroyant was built in the dockyard at Plymouth Dock and launched on 31 March 1798. Foudroyant served Nelson as his flagship from 6 June 1799 until the end of June 1801.
HMS Northumberland was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at the yards of Barnard, Deptford and launched on 2 February 1798. She carried Napoleon to his final exile on St Helena.
Bonne Citoyenne was a 20-gun corvette of the French Navy launched in 1794, the name ship of a four-vessel class. She was part of the French fleet active in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel. The Royal Navy captured her in 1796, commissioning her as the sloop-of-war HMS Bonne Citoyenne.
HMS Malta was an 80-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had previously served with the French Navy as the Tonnant-classGuillaume Tell, but was captured in the Mediterranean in 1800 by a British squadron enforcing the blockade of French-occupied Malta. Having served the French for less than four years from her completion in July 1796 to her capture in March 1800, she would eventually serve the British for forty years.
The action of 31 March 1800 was a naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars fought between a Royal Navy squadron and a French Navy ship of the line off Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. By March 1800 Valletta, the Maltese capital, had been under siege for eighteen months and food supplies were severely depleted, a problem exacerbated by the interception and defeat of a French replenishment convoy in mid-February. In an effort to simultaneously obtain help from France and reduce the number of personnel maintained in the city, the naval commander on the island, Contre-amiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, ordered his subordinate Contre-amiral Denis Decrès to put to sea with the large ship of the line Guillaume Tell, which had arrived in the port shortly before the siege began in September 1798. Over 900 men were carried aboard the ship, which was to sail for Toulon under cover of darkness on 30 March.
HMS Emulous was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by William Row at Newcastle and launched in 1806. She survived an inconclusive but bloody battle with a French frigate during the Napoleonic Wars and captured a number of prizes, including two privateers, on the Halifax station during the War of 1812 before she was wrecked in 1812.
The French brig Alerte was launched in April 1787. The Royal Navy captured her at Toulon in August 1793, and renamed her HMS Vigilante. The British set her on fire when they evacuated Toulon in December of that year. After the French rebuilt her as Alerte, she served at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. The British recaptured her in June 1799 and took her into service as HMS Minorca. Minorca was sold in 1802.
His Majesty's hired armed cutter Penelope served the Royal Navy from 29 January 1794 until the Spanish navy captured her off Gibraltar on 7 July 1799. The Spaniard then employed her as a guarda costa.
HMS Linnet was originally His Majesty’s revenue cutter Speedwell, launched in 1797, that the Royal Navy purchased in 1806. Linnet captured a number of privateers before the French frigate Gloire captured her in 1813. The French sold or transferred her to the Americans, who operated her as the privateer Bunkers Hill. In March 1814 the British recaptured her, but did not return her to service.
HMS Orpheus was a 32–gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1780, and served for more than a quarter of a century, before she was wrecked in 1807.
HMS Malta was the Spanish 10-gun schooner Malta, built and launched in the United States of America in 1797. The British captured her in 1800. After the Royal Navy captured the French ship-of-the-line Guillaume Tell and renamed her HMS Malta, the Admiralty renamed the schooner Gozo in December 1800 after the Maltese island of Gozo.
HMS Minorca was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1805. She served during the Napoleonic Wars in the Mediterranean and was broken up after an uneventful career.
HMS Vincejo, was the Spanish naval brig Vencejo, which was built c.1797, probably at Port Mahon, and that the British captured in 1799. The Royal Navy took her into service and she served in the Mediterranean where she captured a privateer and a French naval brig during the French Revolutionary Wars. After the start of the Napoleonic Wars, the French captured Vencejo in Quiberon Bay in 1804. The French Navy took her into service as Victorine, but then sold her in January 1805. She then served as the French privateer Comte de Regnaud until the British recaptured her in 1810. The Royal Navy did not take her back into service.
Two vessels have borne the designation, His Majesty's hired armed cutter Constitution. The first served the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars. The second served briefly at the start of the Napoleonic Wars and was sunk in 1804. The two cutters are similar enough that may have been the same vessel; at this juncture it is impossible to know.
HMS Pert was the French privateer Bonaparte, a ship built in the United States that HMS Cyane captured in November 1804. The Royal Navy took Bonaparte into service as HMS Pert. Pert was wrecked off the coast of what is now Venezuela in October 1807.
HMS Hirondelle was the French privateer Hirondelle that Bittern captured in 1804. The Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name. She captured a number of vessels in the Mediterranean and participated in one notable action against a Turkish vessel. She was wrecked in 1808 with the loss of almost her entire crew.
Charles Sotheby was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Rear Admiral. Sotheby was present as a midshipman at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, serving aboard the 74-gun HMS Alexander, and took part in the Siege of Malta and subsequent operations in Egypt in 1801. Sotheby was made acting lieutenant on the 36-gun frigate HMS Penelope in October 1801, an appointment that was confirmed in January the following year. He served in that capacity in the English Channel and North Sea. In April 1807, he joined HMS Thetis for service in the Anglo-Turkish War.
HMS Strombolo was launched in 1795 at North Shields as the mercantile Leander. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1797, converted her to a bomb-vessel, and renamed her. She participated in the capture of Malta in 1800. The Navy laid her up in 1802 and had her broken up in 1809.
HMS Bustler was launched at Topsham in 1805. The French captured her in 1808 when she stranded and attempts to set fire to her failed. The French Navy took her into service as Bustler. The British recaptured her in 1813 when attempts by her crew to scuttle her failed. The Royal Navy did not take her into service and her subsequent disposition is currently obscure.
Media related to HMS Penelope (ship, 1798) at Wikimedia Commons| Shipwrecks |
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