Service
Pike was commissioned in Jamaica in June 1804 under Lieutenant John Nichols. Lieutenant Duncan Macdonald replaced him in October. In 1806 Lieutenant C. Spence took command, and then Lieutenant John Otley replaced him in August.
On 25 August Rear-Admiral Dacres formed a small squadron under the command of Captain George Le Geyt of the 18-gun Stork. [2] The other three vessels in the squadron were the 14-gun Superieure, the 10 or 12-gun schooner Flying Fish, and Pike. Dacres ordered Le Geyt to bring out or destroy privateers based at Batabano in Cuba. [2]
On 30 August the squadron approached the Isle of Pines. There they sighted a Spanish schooner at anchor. Le Geyt reinforced Pike with a lieutenant and eight seamen and sent her to engage the Spanish vessel. After a short chase and two broadsides from Pike's 12-pounder carronades, the Spaniard surrendered. She turned out to be a guarda costa of 10 guns, with a crew of 45 men. Pike took possession of her and took her back to the squadron. [2] [3]
Le Geyt then discovered that Stork drew too much water to permit her to enter the Gulf of Batabanó. He therefore transferred to the other three vessels his boats and men and sent in the cutting-out expedition under the command of Commander Edward Rushworth of Superieure. [2]
The landing party consisted of 63 officers and men, none of whom were from Pike. Ten men from Flying Fish remained to guard the party's boats. [2] The party landed on 2 September and crossed some two miles of marshy ground to storm a fort at Batabano. On their way they had to break through an ambush of enemy soldiers and militia. In the process they killed two and wounded one badly. At the fort they captured six 18-pounder long guns, which they spiked. [2] The party then proceeded to take possession of the vessels in the bay. [2] There is some disagreement as to how many vessels they captured and took as prizes, with the total rising as high as 12. According to Rushworth's letter (an after action report), the prizes included a felucca, pierced for 14 guns but only mounting one 18-pounder, a schooner pierced for 12 guns, a French 4-gun privateer, and three Spanish privateers of one gun each. The party also burnt at least six smaller coasting vessels after having removed their cargoes. [2] Total British casualties amounted to one man badly wounded. [2]
On 2 September Flying Fish, Stork, Superieure, and Pike destroyed two privateers, names unknown, on the Jamaica station. One was a felucca of five guns.
Between 1 January 1806 and 1 January 1807, Pike, in company with Shark, Superieure and Flying Fish captured a French felucca of one gun. Whether or not it was one of the above vessels is unclear. [5]
Capture and recapture
On 10 March 1807, Pike, still under Otley's command, was sailing from Jamaica to Curaçao when she encountered a French schooner that fired on her but then sheered off. The next day another schooner approached, fired on Pike, and then drew off to join the first schooner. Pike endeavored to escape, but by 17 March the larger of the two French vessels commenced to gain. At daybreak on 18 March the larger French schooner caught up with Pike off Altavella (the eastern point of the island of Santo Domingo). [7] In the 45-minute engagement that followed, Pike lost one man killed and five wounded out of her crew of about 20. Some of her crew, who were new, left their stations during the engagement and had to be driven back to their stations. With his rigging in pieces, damage to his gaff and masts and yards, and the second French schooner approaching, Otley struck Pike's colours. The French privateer that captured Pike was either Impérial, or the French 16-gun privateer Marat, [7] or Murat.
The court martial board ruled that Otley could have better managed the encounter and warned him to be more circumspect in the future. It did recognize that his crew was raw.
In September 1808 the Cruizer-class brig-sloop Moselle, under Commander Alexander Gordon, recaptured Pike. [7] She was commissioned in Jamaica under the command of Lieutenant Joel Orchard. [10] [lower-alpha 1] (Orchard had been captured in 1805 by the Spanish after his ship Barracouta, Pike's sister ship, was wrecked.) On 6 July 1809 Pike was one of the vessels that made up the blockade of the city of Santo Domingo and she, and Fleur-de-Mer, were present at its surrender. [11] [lower-alpha 2]
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.
Embuscade ("Ambush") was a 32-gun frigate. She served in the French Navy during the War of the First Coalition before being captured by the British. Renamed HMS Ambuscade and later HMS Seine, she participated in the Napoleonic Wars in the Royal Navy. She was broken up in 1813.
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 Ferret was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Benjamin Tanner at Dartmouth and launched in 1806, 19 months late. She served on the Jamaica, Halifax, and Leith stations during which time she took three privateers as prizes before she was wrecked in 1813.
HMS Snapper 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 1804. She cruised for some seven years, sharing in several captures of merchant vessels and taking some herself, before a French privateer captured her.
HMS Haddock was a Royal Navy 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.
On Thursday 21st inst launched off the stocks at Mr Isaac Skinner's shipyard his Majesty's Schooner "Haddock". The above schooner is said to be the completest vessel ever built in Bermuda
HMS Dominica was the French privateer schooner J(T?)opo L'Oeil that the British captured in 1807 in the Leeward Islands. She took part in one inconclusive single-ship action before she foundered in 1809.
HMS Fleur de la Mer was the French privateer Gipsey, captured in 1806. The British Royal Navy bought her in 1807 and she served until she foundered in 1810.
HMS Superieure was the French privateer Supérieure, which was built in 1801 in Baltimore, Maryland, and which the British captured in 1803 in the West Indies, and took into the Royal Navy. She spent most of her career on the Jamaica and Leeward Islands stations, where she captured numerous privateers. She participated in several notable single-ship actions, including one in which she harassed a frigate, and two campaigns that would, in 1847, earn her surviving crew members the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She was laid-up in Britain in 1810 and sold in 1814.
HMS Flying Fish was the American-built schooner Flying Fish, launched in 1801. She became the French privateer schooner Poisson Volant, which the British captured in 1803 in the West Indies and took into the Royal Navy. She captured a privateer and recaptured some small merchant vessels. She was renamed Firefly in 1807, but was lost with all hands when she foundered later that year.
HMS Papillon was the French Navy's 12-gun brig Papillon, which the British captured in September 1803. She foundered in September 1805 with the loss of all her crew.
HMS Flying Fish was the schooner Revenge, purchased in the West Indies in 1806 for the Royal Navy. She participated in a notable cutting out expedition and in 1807 in the second of the British invasions of the Río de la Plata; she was wrecked in 1808.
HMS Port Royal was a 10-gun schooner that the British Royal Navy bought in Jamaica in 1796. The French captured her in 1797 and the British recaptured her later that year, when they renamed her HMS Recovery. She captured three privateers, one in a single-ship action, before the Navy sold her in 1801.
HMS Spitfire was the French 6-gun privateer schooner Poulette, launched in 1793, that the Royal Navy captured that same year. Lieutenant John Perkins commissioned her in April. Under Perkins she was part of Commodore John Ford's squadron at Jamaica. She was lost with all hands off Saint-Domingue, Hispaniola, in February 1794.
HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.
His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Sandwich served the Royal Navy from 23 May 1798 until the French frigate Créole captured her on 14 June 1799. She then served in the French Navy until the Royal Navy recaptured her on 15 October 1803. The Navy purchased her in 1804 and she served for some months in 1805 as HMS Sandwich before she was sold in Jamaica. During this period she captured three small French privateers in two days.
HMS Elizabeth was a French privateer schooner that the Royal Navy captured in 1805 and took into service under her existing name. She participated in an engagement and a campaign that earned her crews clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was lost with all hands in 1814 when she capsized in the West Indies.
HMS Morne Fortunee was the French privateer Regulus that British Royal Navy captured in 1804. In 1806 the Royal Navy commissioned her. She captured some small privateers and took part in a number of other engagements. She foundered in 1809.
HMS Tweed was launched in 1807. On the Jamaica station she captured two small privateers and several merchant vessels. On the North Sea station she captured one small privateers and several merchant vessels. She was wrecked on 5 November 1813 with the loss of more than half her crew.
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.
United Kingdom 
