The British ships Ruby, Captain Michael John Everitt, Aeolus (or Eolus), 32, and the sloop Jamaica, 18, were cruising off Hayti, when on 2 June 1779, in the Bay of Gonave, they fell in with the 36-gun French frigate Prudente, Captain d'Escars. Ruby chased Prudente for some hours and was much annoyed by the well-directed fire of the enemy's stern-chasers, by which Captain Everitt and a sailor lost their lives. When within easy range of Prudente, at about sunset, Ruby compelled her to strike, with the loss of two killed and three wounded. The British Navy took Prudente into service under the same name.
Memorial to Captain Everitt in Fareham church
Ruby was at Plymouth on 20 January 1795 and so shared in the proceeds of the detention of the Dutch naval vessels, East Indiamen, and other merchant vessels that were in port on the outbreak of war between Britain and the Netherlands.[2]
Ruby, under Captain Henry Edwyn Stanhope,[3] sailed with the first squadron (under Capt John Blankett) to take part in the 1st British Occupation of the Cape, leaving England on 27 February 1795. There she was used on patrols and general duties but saw no action. the Battle of Muizenberg on 7 August 1795 triggered the collapse of the Dutch forces which controlled the Cape of Good Hope at the time.[4]
Representation of the Distressed Situation of His Majesty's Ships Ruby, Hector, Berwick and Bristol when Dismasted in the Great Hurricane, 6 October 1780
On 13 July 1800 Ruby was escorting a convoy from St Helena to Great Britain when at 45°N29°W / 45°N 29°W / 45; -29 when she sighted a strange sail that appeared to be a French privateer. Winds were light and next morning Ruby sighted the privateer some three miles ahead. Ruby was unable to catch the privateer, which made use of sweeps to remain just out of gunshot. Towards evening a breeze came up and Ruby succeeded in capturing the privateer at 1a.m. on 15 July.[5]
The privateer was La Fortune, of Bordeaux. She was a new vessel, strongly built, fully copper-fastened, and a good sailer. She was on only her second cruise. She had been out a month but had succeeded only in capturing the brig Fame, which had been sailing from Sierra Leone to London. La Fortune was armed with sixteen 18-pounder guns, four long iron 12-pounder guns, and two 36-pounder brass carronades. She had a complement of 202 men, but she had put 14 on board Fame as a prize crew. Captain Solomon Ferris, of Ruby, recommended that the Navy acquire La Fortune.[5]
On 25 June 1807, Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon entered an accord at Tilsit, one of the secret clauses of which entailed the joint seizure of the Portuguese fleet. This led Napoleon to send a large army into Portugal in October 1807, with a demand that Portugal should detain all British ships and sequester British property. This led to the departure of a Naval Squadron under Sir Sidney Smith to blockade the Tagus estuary. The squadron consisted of the Hibernia (120 guns), the London (98), the Foudroyant (80) and Elizabeth, Conqueror, Marlborough, Monarch, Plantagenet and Bedford (all78s). On arrival Smith arranged for the Portuguese Royal Family, all the serviceable Portuguese fleet and 20 armed merchantmen to leave for Brazil, which they did on 29 October. Smith and his squadron accompanied them part of the way, leaving Marlborough, London, Monarch and Bedford to escort the fleet to Brazil. On 30 October a Russian squadron under Admiral Seniavin entered Lisbon, where they became blockaded by the return of Smith's squadron. A few days after the Tsar's hostile declaration became known in London, five ships left Portsmouth to reinforce the blockade. These were the Ganges Defence and Alfred (74s) and Ruby and Agamemnon (64s). On arrival at the Tagus they enabled the Foudroyant, Conqueror and Plantagenet to leave for Cadiz. [6] The blockade continued for some time, as evidenced by this extract from a letter written by a seaman, John Williams, on board HMS Ruby off Lisbon in June 1808: "We are at present at anchor at the mouth of the harbour in sight of our Enemies. We are in sight of all of their Shipping with a naked eye there is of them 13 Saile of the Line of Battle Ships & 25 Sloops and Brigs of War all the Gun Boats we do not know the number of them. We are only 10 Saile of the Line and 2 Frigates 2 Sloops and Brigs. There is very heavy Batteries which the French has got the possession of them one of them has mounted as many heavy guns as there is Days in a year. We expect orders to go in Every Day So Dear Brother Remember me in your prayer." All seems to have gone well, since on 15 October 1808 John Williams again wrote home from HMS Ruby at Spithead.[7]
HMS Bellona was a 74-gun Bellona-class third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Designed by Sir Thomas Slade, she was a prototype for the iconic 74-gun ships of the latter part of the 18th century. "The design of the Bellona class was never repeated precisely, but Slade experimented slightly with the lines, and the Arrogant, Ramillies, Egmont, and Elizabeth classes were almost identical in size, layout, and structure, and had only slight variations in the shape of the underwater hull. The Culloden-class ship of the line was also similar, but slightly larger. Thus over forty ships were near-sisters of the Bellona." Bellona was built at Chatham, starting on 10 May 1758, launched on 19 February 1760, and commissioned three days later. She was the second ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name, and saw service in the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Victorious was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Blackwall Yard, London on 27 April 1785. She was the first ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.
HMS Lion was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, of the Worcester class, launched on 3 September 1777 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
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 1800.
HMS Plantagenet was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 22 October 1801 at Woolwich. She was designed by Sir William Rule as one of the 'large class' 74s, and was the only ship built to her draught. As a large 74, she carried 24-pounder guns on her upper gun deck instead of the 18-pounder guns found on the middling and common class 74s.
HMS Phoenix was a 36-gun Perseverance-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The shipbuilder George Parsons built her at Bursledon and launched her on 15 July 1783. She served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was instrumental in the events leading up to the battle of Trafalgar. Phoenix was involved in several single-ship actions, the most notable occurring on 10 August 1805 when she captured the French frigate Didon, which was more heavily armed than her. She was wrecked, without loss of life, off Smyrna in 1816.
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.
HMS Eurydice was a 24-gun Porcupine-class post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1781 and broken up in 1834. During her long career she saw service in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She captured a number of enemy privateers and served in the East and West Indies, the Mediterranean and British and American waters.
HMS Lowestoffe was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Built during the latter part of the Seven Years' War, she went on to see action in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary War, and served often in the Caribbean. A young Horatio Nelson served aboard her shortly after passing his lieutenant's examination.
Admiral 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.
The Third Battle of Ushant or the action of 20–21 April 1782 was a naval battle fought during the American Revolutionary War, between a French naval fleet of three ships of the line protecting a convoy and two British Royal naval ships of the line off Ushant, a French island at the mouth of the English Channel off the northwesternmost point of France. This was the third battle that occurred in this region during the course of the war.
HMS Aurora was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, that saw service during the American and French Revolutionary wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Designed to carry a complement of 200 men, she was armed with a main battery of twenty-four 9-pound guns.
HMS Port Royal was the former French armed merchant vessel Comte de Maurepas, which the British captured in 1778. The British armed her with 18 guns and took her into the Royal Navy under her new name. The Spanish captured her at the Siege of Pensacola in 1781.
The Battle of Île Ronde was a minor naval engagement between small French Navy and British Royal Navy squadrons off Île de France, now named Mauritius, in the early stages of the French Revolutionary Wars. The battle was fought over control of the waters around Île de France, which was under blockade from the British squadron as French warships and privateers operating from the island posed a significant threat to vital British trade routes connected to British India and China.
The East Indies theatre of the French Revolutionary Wars was a series of campaigns related to the major European conflict known as the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between 1793 and 1801 between the new French Republic and its allies and a shifting alliance of rival powers. Although the Indian Ocean was separated by vast distance from the principal theatre of the conflict in Western Europe, it played a significant role due to the economic importance of the region to Great Britain, France's most constant opponent, of its colonies in India and the Far Eastern trade.
Nossa Senhora da Conceição was launched at Lisbon on 13 July 1771 for the Portuguese Navy as a first rate ship of the line of 90 guns. In 1793 she was the flagship of the squadron that the Portuguese Navy provided to assist the British Royal Navy's Channel Fleet. The next year the Portuguese government refitted her and changed her name to Príncipe Real. In 1798-1800 Príncipe Real served in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the Portuguese squadron assisting Admiral Nelson.
HMS Triton was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy designed by James Gambier and launched in 1796 at Deptford. Triton was an experimental ship and the only one built to that design; she was constructed out of fir due to wartime supply shortages of more traditional materials and had some unusual features such as no tumblehome. Her namesake was the Greek god Triton, a god of the sea. She was commissioned in June 1796 under Captain John Gore, with whom she would spend the majority of her active service, to serve in the Channel in the squadron of Sir John Warren.
Captain Jonas Rose was a Royal Navy officer during the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He commanded at the Battles of Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807, and the operations in the Baltic that followed. On 16 June 1809, he wrecked his ship, HMS Agamemnon, off Maldonado, Uruguay, the second such accident of his career. He never commanded again and died in Portsmouth in 1820.
References
Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN0-85177-252-8.
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