HMS Ranger (1787)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain
NameRose
Launched1776 [1]
Acquired1787 by purchase
RenamedRanger by Royal Navy
Honours and
awards
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "1 June 1794" [2]
Captured11 June 1794
Civil and Naval Ensign of France.svg France
NameRanger
Acquired11 June 1794 by capture
Captured15 October 1797
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain
NameHMS Venturer
Acquired15 October 1797 and again 6 November 1797
FateSold February 1803
General characteristics [3] [4]
Displacement180 tons (French)
Tons burthen195594 (bm)
Length
  • 74 ft 7+14 in (22.7 m) (overall)
  • 56 ft 0+58 in (17.1 m) (keel)
Beam25 ft 7 in (7.8 m)
Depth of hold9 ft 5 in (2.9 m)
Propulsion Sails
Sail plan Schooner
Complement
  • British service:55
  • French service:107
Armament
  • British service: 12 × 4-pounder guns
  • French service: 16 × 4-pounder guns + 6 × swivel guns [4]

HMS Ranger was the 14-gun revenue cutter Rose, launched in 1776, that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787, and that the French captured in 1794. The British recaptured her (twice) in 1797 and renamed her HMS Venturer (or Venturier). The Navy sold her in 1803.

Contents

The Royal Navy purchased Rose on 2 January 1787. The Navy commissioned Rose as Ranger in April 1787 under the command of Lieutenant Samuel Featherstone, for Portland and the Start. In 1788 Ranger was fitted for foreign service at Portsmouth, but was paid off the next year. Then in 1790, she was fitted for Channel service. In November 1791 Lieutenant Isaac Cotgrave commissioned Ranger for the Channel. [3]

Capture

Ranger, under Cotgrave's command, was part of Admiral Lord Howe's British Channel Fleet at the battle of the Glorious First of June. As a cutter and thus one of the support vessels there, she did not participate in the battle itself, and so suffered no casualties. Still, in 1847 when the Admiralty authorized the issue of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "1 June 1794", the surviving claimants from Ranger's crew, if any, were included.

Ranger was cruising in the Channel when on 11 June 1794 she encountered the French frigate Railleuse off Brest. Ranger engaged in some proforma resistance and then struck. The French treated Ranger's crew badly, stripping the men naked and keeping them in the open for two days until they arrived at Brest. [5] [6] The court martial on 11 September for the loss of the vessel acquitted Cotgrave. He then testified as to the treatment he and his crew had received. During the day they were kept naked on the gangway, in the rain. At night they were kept in the hold. When they arrived at Brest they were given some clothes before being landed. The French captain reportedly announced to his prisoners "that was the way he would treat all English slaves." [7]

The French Navy took Ranger into service and kept her name.

French service

Between June and July 1795 at Lorient, the French re-rigged Ranger as a brig. [4]

Lloyd's List reported that the "Ranger National Corvette, of 16 Guns" had captured two vessels on 24 August, Providence, Caughy, master, which had been sailing from Belfast to Jamaica, and Somme, of Dartmouth, which had been sailing from Viana to Newfoundland. Ranger burned Providence, but returned Somme to her crew, who brought her into Cork. [8] Then on 8 September Ranger captured Supply, Meriton, master, as she was sailing from Martinique to London. However, the people left on board recaptured Supply from the prize crew and sailed her to New York. [9] Next, Ranger captured and burned Betsy and Brother, which had been sailing from Norfolk to Dublin. [10]

Then in June or July 1796, Ranger captured and burned Britannia, Ford, master, which had been sailing from Liverpool to Newfoundland. [11] Around 15 September Ranger, under the command of enseigne de vaisseau Hulin (later lieutenant de vaisseau), carried diplomatic correspondence from Brest to the United States. By 22 May 1797 Ranger was returning from New York to Brest. Next she cruised in the Atlantic.

Captures and recaptures

On 15 October 1797 Ranger was in the roads of the Canary Islands where she had the misfortune to encounter HMS Indefatigable. Indefatigable captured the "National Brig Corvette Ranger", of 14 guns and 70 men. Ranger had been carrying dispatches to the West Indies, but was able to destroy them before the British came on board. [12]

About two weeks after Indefatigable had captured Ranger, on 2 November the French privateer Vengeance recaptured Ranger. Four days later Galatea re-recaptured Ranger off the Gironde. [13] There being a Ranger already in service, when the Royal Navy took Galatea's prize back into service they gave her the name HMS Venturer. [lower-alpha 1]

HMS Venturer

Venturer arrived at Plymouth on 9 August 1798, some nine months after her recapture. She underwent fitting between January and April 1799. The Royal Navy recommissioned her under Lieutenant Daniel Burwood. In April 1802 Lieutenant Robert Jump replaced Burwood. In November he sailed Venturer to Gibraltar. [3]

Fate

Venturer was paid off in Gibraltar in January 1803. She was sold by Admiralty Order on 10 February. [3]

Notes

  1. A number of references to the capture give Ranger's name as Venturier, suggesting that the French may have renamed her at some point. For example, the Naval Chronicle, in a chronological listing of the vessels of the Royal Navy, gives her name as Venturier, rather than Venturer. [1]

Citations

  1. 1 2 Naval Chronicle, Vol. 3, Appendix.
  2. "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. pp. 236–237.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), p. 354.
  4. 1 2 3 Winfield & Roberts (2015), p. 245.
  5. Roche (2005), p. 371.
  6. Hepper (1994), p. 76.
  7. Duncan (1806), pp. 349–350.
  8. Lloyd's List, no.2725, - accessed 15 April 2015.
  9. Lloyd's List, no.2767 - accessed 15 April 2015.
  10. Lloyd's List, no.2768 - accessed 15 April 2015.
  11. Lloyd's List, no.2843 - accessed 15 April 2015.
  12. "No. 14065". The London Gazette . 14 November 1797. p. 1090.
  13. "No. 15098". The London Gazette . 12 January 1799. p. 47.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Galatea</i> (1794) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Galatea was a fifth-rate 32-gun sailing frigate of the British Royal Navy that George Parsons built at Bursledon and launched in 1794. Before she was broken up in 1809 she captured numerous prizes and participated in a number of actions, first in the Channel and off Ireland (1794–1803), and then in the Caribbean (1802–1809), including one that earned her crew the Naval General Service Medal.

HMS <i>Indefatigable</i> (1784) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Indefatigable was one of the Ardent-class 64-gun third-rate ships-of-the-line designed by Sir Thomas Slade in 1761 for the Royal Navy. She was built as a ship-of-the-line, but most of her active service took place after her conversion to a 44-gun razee frigate. She had a long career under several distinguished commanders, serving throughout the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She took some 27 prizes, alone or in company, and the Admiralty authorised the issue of four clasps to the Naval General Service Medal in 1847 to any surviving members of her crews from the respective actions. She was broken up in 1816.

HMS <i>Babet</i> (1794)

HMS Babet was a 20-gun sixth-rate post ship of the British Royal Navy. She had previously been a corvette of the French Navy under the name Babet, until her capture in 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars. She served with the British, capturing several privateers and other vessels, and was at the Battle of Groix. She disappeared in the Caribbean in 1800, presumably having foundered.

HMS Lively was a 32-gun fifth-rate Alcmene-class frigate of the British Royal Navy launched on 23 October 1794 at Northam, Devon. She took part in three actions one a single-ship action, one a major battle, and one a cutting-out boat expedition – that would in 1847 qualify her crews for the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal. Lively was wrecked in 1798.

Vénus was a corvette of the French Navy that the British captured in 1800. Renamed HMS Scout, she served briefly in the Channel before being wrecked in 1801, a few days after taking a major prize.

HMS Antigua was a French frigate launched in 1779. She became a privateer that the British captured in 1804. She served the Royal Navy as a prison ship from 1804 to 1816, when she was broken up.

The first HMS Epervier, sometimes spelled HMS Epervoir, was the French ex-naval brick-aviso and then privateer Épervier, launched in 1788. The British captured her in 1797 and registered her in 1798 as an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. The Navy never commissioned her and she was sold in 1801.

HMS Atalante was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was formerly the French Atalante, captured in 1797. She served with the British during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was wrecked in 1807.

HMS <i>Danae</i> (1798) French naval ship (1796–1798)

Vaillante was a 20-gun French Bonne-Citoyenne-class corvette, built at Bayonne and launched in 1796. British naval Captain Edward Pellew in Indefatigable captured her off the Île de Ré on 7 August 1798. The Admiralty took her into the Royal Navy as the post ship HMS Danae. Some of her crew mutinied in 1800 and succeeded in turning her over to the French. The French returned her to her original name of Vaillante, and sold her in 1801. As a government-chartered transport she made one voyage to Haiti; her subsequent history is unknown at this time.

HMS <i>Espoir</i> (1797) Brig of the Royal Navy

L'Espoir was a French brig-sloop that served for 9½ years in the French Navy before HMS Thalia captured her in September 1797. In her subsequent short career in British service as HMS Espoir she captured three prizes, with the capture in 1798 of the more heavily armed Genoese pirate Liguria earning her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal. Espoir was laid up in 1799 and sold in 1804.

French frigate <i>Gracieuse</i> (1787)

Gracieuse was a 32-gun Charmante-class frigate of the French Navy. Renamed to Unité in 1793, she took part in the French Revolutionary Wars. The Royal Navy captured her in 1796 off Île d'Yeu and brought her into British service as HMS Unite. She was sold in 1802

Perdrix was a corvette of the French Royal Navy, launched in 1784. The British captured her off Antigua in 1795 and she served briefly in the Royal Navy in the West Indies, where she captured a French privateer, before being broken up in 1798.

French schooner <i>Impériale</i> (1805)

The French schooner Impériale was a 3-gun mercantile schooner-aviso of the French Navy commissioned at Guadeloupe on 23 September 1805. The Royal Navy captured her on 24 May 1806 and named her HMS Vigilant. The Navy renamed her HMS Subtle on 20 November 1806. She wrecked at Bermuda on 20 October 1807.

The French brig Amarante, was launched in 1793 at Honfleur for the French Navy. The British Royal Navy captured her at the end of 1796 and took her into service as HMS Amaranthe. She captured one French vessel in a single-ship action before she was wrecked near Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 1799.

French brig <i>Suffisante</i> (1793) French (1793–1795) and Royal Navy (1795–1803) brig

The French brig Suffisante was launched in 1793 for the French Navy. In 1795 the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service under her existing name. HMS Suffisante captured seven privateers during her career, as well as recapturing some British merchantmen and capturing a number of prizes, some of them valuable. She was lost in December 1803 when she grounded in poor weather in Cork harbour.

HMS <i>Barbuda</i> (1780) Sloop of the Royal Navy

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.

HMS <i>Ceres</i> (1777) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Ceres was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1777 for the British Royal Navy that the French captured in December 1778 off Saint Lucia. The French Navy took her into service as Cérès. The British recaptured her in 1782 and renamed her HMS Raven, only to have the French recapture her again early in 1783. The French returned her name to Cérès, and she then served in the French Navy until sold at Brest in 1791.

The Royal Navy purchased HMS Barracouta on the stocks in 1782. After she had served for almost ten years patrolling against smugglers, the Navy sold her in 1792. She became the privateer Thought, which had a successful cruize, capturing several prizes including a French privateer, but then was herself captured in September 1793. She served the French Navy under the names Pensée, Montagne, Pensée, and Vedette, until the British recaptured her in 1800 and renamed her HMS Vidette. The Royal Navy sold her in 1802.

HMS Trompeuse was a former French 16-gun brig-sloop, launched in July 1793, that HMS Sphinx captured on 12 January 1794 near Cape Clear Island. The British Royal Navy took her into service. As HMS Trompeuse she captured a small privateer and then grounded off Kinsale in 1796.

The French brig Génie was a Sylphe-class brig launched at Dunkirk in 1808. She was retired from service in 1833.

References