HMS Perseus (1776)

Last updated

HMS Camilla (1776).webp
1796 painting of Perseus' sister ship HMS Camilla by John Thomas Serres}
History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Perseus
Ordered30 October 1775
BuilderJohn Randal and Company, Rotherhithe
Laid downNovember 1775
Launched20 March 1776
Completed26 May 1776 at Deptford Dockyard
CommissionedMarch 1776
DecommissionedSeptember 1805
Reclassified Bomb vessel in 1798
Honours and
awards		 Siege of Charleston, 1780
FateBroken up at Sheerness Dockyard, September 1805
General characteristics
Class & type20-gun sixth-rate Sphinx-class post ship
Tons burthen43188⁄94 bm
Length
  • 108 ft 1 in (32.9 m) (gun deck)
  • 89 ft 6.5 in (27.3 m) (keel)
Beam30 ft 1.5 in (9.2 m)
Depth of hold9 ft 8 in (2.9 m)
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Complement140
Armament

HMS Perseus was a 20-gun (later 26-gun) sixth-rate Sphinx-class post ship of the Royal Navy which saw service as a privateer-hunter in the American Revolutionary War between 1776 and 1783, and as a bomb vessel in the French Revolutionary Wars between 1794 and 1801.

Contents

Launched in 1776, Perseus' early duties were as a hunter of American and French privateers which were disrupting British merchant trade off the coast of North America. In this role she secured five victories at sea over enemy vessels. In 1780 she was part of the British naval forces engaged in the six-week Siege of Charleston which culminated in the surrender of the American garrison. Returning to her previous role, Perseus secured another three victories over privateers before she was paid off and decommissioned at the conclusion of the War in 1782. [1]

Recommissioned for peacetime service in 1783, Perseus assisted in protecting British merchant vessels in the English Channel and Irish Sea, but was repeatedly forced from service for refit and repair. In the lead up to the French Revolutionary Wars, Perseus was refitted as a bomb vessel capable to conducting naval bombardment of French ports. Despite her change of role, Perseus secured one further vitory at sea over an enemy privateer, capturing the 16-gun San Lion in 1798. A year later she was part of Royal Navy squadrons in action against land-based targets, off Alexandria during the British response to France's Egyptian Campaign, and against the French-aligned Parthenopean Republic in southern Italy. In 1803 she was also engaged in the Royal Navy's blockade and bombardment of the French port of Dieppe. [1]

Decommissioned at the conclusion of the French Revolutionarey Wars, she was broken up for scrap at Sheerness Dockyard in 1805. [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Winfield 2007, p. 268

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.