| History | |
|---|---|
 Great Britain | |
| Name | HMS Racoon |
| Commissioned | August 1782 |
| Out of service | 12 September 1782 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | brig-sloop |
| Armament | 14 guns |
HMS Racoon was a 14-gun two-masted brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, purchased for service during the American Revolutionary War. She was commissioned in August 1782 under the command of Lieutenant (and later Admiral) Edmund Nagle, but was captured and destroyed four weeks later by the French frigate Aigle.
Racoon was one of at least forty North American merchant vessels purchased by the Royal Navy between 1775 and 1784 to bolster Britain's offensive capacity against the combined naval forces of France, Spain and the American colonies. Before her purchase in mid-1782, she had been the mercantile brig Lovely Sally. She was two-masted, but her age and dimensions are otherwise unrecorded. [1] She was commissioned on 1 August 1782 under Lieutenant Edmund Nagle who was transferred aboard after four months in command of the 14-gun sloop Polecat. [2] [3]
Britain's naval capacity was tested by France's successful Hudson Bay raids in the week after Racoon's launch. The newly purchased brig was immediately put to sea, and was cruising off the mouth of the Delaware River when she encountered the 38-gun French frigate Aigle and her sister ship Gloire. Racoon was smaller and slower than the French frigates, and Nagle had few alternatives other than surrender. He and his crew were held aboard Aigle until it in turn was captured by larger British vessels. [4] All of Racoon's crew were freed, except the ship's pilot who chose to remain with the French when they fled in Aigle's boats ahead of the British capture. [5]
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
HMS Astraea was a 32-gun fifth rate Active-class frigate of the Royal Navy. Fabian at E. Cowes launched her in 1781, and she saw action in the American War of Independence as well as during the Napoleonic Wars. She is best known for her capture of the larger French frigate Gloire in a battle on 10 April 1795, while under the command of Captain Lord Henry Paulet. She was wrecked on 23 March 1808 off the coast of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands.
HMS Speedy was a 14-gun Speedy-class brig of the British Royal Navy. Built during the last years of the American War of Independence, she served with distinction during the French Revolutionary Wars.
HMS Pegasus was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth 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.
HMS Bedford was a Royal Navy 74-gun third rate. This ship of the line was launched on 27 October 1775 at Woolwich.
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.
Six ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Racoon, after the raccoon:
Égyptienne was a French frigate launched at Toulon in 1799. Her first service was in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1801, in which the British captured her at Alexandria. She famously carried the Rosetta Stone to Woolwich, and then the Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as the 40-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Egyptienne. She served in a number of single-ship actions before being reduced to harbour service in 1807, and was sold for breaking in 1817.
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.
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 Racoon was a brig-sloop built and launched in 1795. She served during the French Revolutionary Wars and in the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. She had an active career under several captains, working essentially independently while capturing or destroying some 20 enemy privateers and naval vessels. Several of the captures involved engagements that resulted in casualties on Racoon as well as on her opponents. She was broken up early in 1806.
HMS Polecat was the Pennsylvania privateer Navarro, Captain William Keeler, which HMS Orpheus captured in March 1782. Between her commissioning on 18 July 1781 under Captain Woolman Sutton and her capture, Navarro captured two British vessels and recaptured one American vessel. One vessel that Navarro captured was Rebecca, M'Fadzean, master, which was sailing from Jamaica to London when Navarro captured Rebecca at 44°00′N26°50′W, north of the Azores.
The French frigate Aigle was launched in 1780 as a privateer. The French Navy purchased her in 1782, but the British captured her that same year and took her into the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Aigle. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served primarily in the Mediterranean, where she was wrecked in 1798.
The action of 15 September 1782 was a naval action in the mouth of the Delaware Bay in which four Royal Naval vessels under the command of George Elphinstone pursued and attacked three French warships that included two frigates under the command of Comte de la Touche Tréville. The French 38-gun frigate Aigle was grounded and captured along with the Comte de la Touche.
Etna was a French naval Etna-class ship-sloop launched in 1795 that the Royal Navy captured in November 1796. She was taken into service as HMS Aetna and renamed to HMS Cormorant the next year. She captured several merchant vessels and privateers before she was wrecked in 1800 off the coast of Egypt.
HMS Grasshopper was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1806, captured several vessels, and took part in two notable actions before the Dutch captured her in 1811. She then served The Netherlands navy until she was broken up in 1822.
HMS Kingfisher was an 18-gun sloop of the Royal Navy which saw service during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.
The French brig Duc de Chartres was built between 1779 and 1780 at Le Havre as a 24-gun privateer. As a privateer she captured one British warship before in 1781 the Royal Navy captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. She then captured several American privateers and armed merchant vessels, and one French naval corvette in a noteworthy single-ship action. The Navy sold Duc de Chartres in 1784.
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.