HMS Endeavour was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771.
The Gaspee affair was a significant event in the lead-up to the American Revolution. HMS Gaspee was a Royal Navy customs schooner that enforced the Navigation Acts around Newport, Rhode Island, in 1772. It ran aground in shallow water while chasing the packet boat Hannah on June 9 off of Warwick, Rhode Island. A group of men led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown I attacked, boarded, and burned the Gaspee to the waterline.
HMS Pickle was a topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, of six guns, that Lord Hugh Seymour purchased to use as a tender on the Jamaica station. Pickle was at the Battle of Trafalgar, and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
HMS Rose was a 20-gun Seaford-class post ship of the Royal Navy, built at Blaydes Yard in Hull, England in 1757 and in service until 1779. Her activities in suppressing smuggling in the colony of Rhode Island provoked the formation of what became the Continental Navy, precursor of the modern United States Navy. She was based at the North American station in the West Indies and then used in the American Revolutionary War. A replica was built in 1970, then modified to match HMS Surprise, and used in two films, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
The Chestertown Tea Party was a protest against British excise duties which, according to local legend, took place in May 1774 in Chestertown, Maryland as a response to the British Tea Act. Chestertown tradition holds that, following the example of the more famous Boston Tea Party, colonial patriots boarded the brigantine Geddes in broad daylight and threw its cargo of tea into the Chester River. The event is celebrated each Memorial Day weekend with a festival and historic reenactment called the Chestertown Tea Party Festival.
HMS Fantome was an 18-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was originally a French privateer brig named Fantôme, which the British captured in 1810 and commissioned into British service. Fantome saw extensive action in the War of 1812 until she was lost in a shipwreck at Prospect, Nova Scotia, near Halifax in 1814.
HMS Poictiers was a 74-gun Royal Navy third rate. This ship of the line was launched on 9 December 1809 at Upnor. During the War of 1812 she was part of the blockade of the United States. She was broken up in 1857.
HMS Pictou was a 14-gun schooner that the Royal Navy captured in 1813. She served briefly on the Royal Navy's North American station, capturing one or two merchantmen before the American frigate USS Constitution captured her during the War of 1812.
HMS Highflyer was originally an American privateer schooner built in 1811. As a privateer she took several British vessels as prizes. The Royal Navy captured her in 1813. She then participated in several raids on the Chesapeake and coastal Virginia before the Americans recaptured her later in 1813.
HMS Halifax was a schooner built for merchant service at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1765 that the British Royal Navy purchased in 1768 for coastal patrol in North America in the years just prior to the American Revolution. She is one of the best documented schooners from early North America.
HMS Mosquidobit was the Chesapeake-built six-gun schooner Lynx that the British Royal Navy captured and took into service in 1813. She was sold into commercial service in 1820 and nothing is known of her subsequent fate.
HMS Cuttle 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 1807. She was broken up in 1814.
HMS Coureuse was a schooner launched in about 1785 at New York, that the French Navy acquired at Cayenne and armed and commissioned at Lorient in 1794. The British captured her in 1795 and the Royal Navy briefly used her as a dispatch vessel in the Mediterranean. The Admiralty sold her in 1799.
Three, and possibly five, vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Sultana, for a female sultan or wife of a sultan:
Grecian was an American schooner launched in 1812. During the War of 1812 she received a letter of marque. The Royal Navy captured her on 5 February 1814 and took her into service as HMS Grecian. She was sold in 1822. In 1823 she became a merchantman. In 1824 the Chilean Navy captured her, but she escaped, and thereafter may have served for a time as a Spanish privateer. After the end of the Peruvian War of Independence she apparently returned to more conventional pursuits and was probably lost in 1829 though she was still listed in 1830 as sailing between London and Lima.
HMS Canso was the American letter of marque schooner Lottery, launched in 1811, that a British squadron captured in 1813. The Royal Navy took Lottery into service as HMS Canso and she served during the War of 1812 and briefly thereafter. The navy sold her in 1816.
HMS Acteon, was the brig Actéon, launched in France in 1804 as the second of the two-ship Lynx-class. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1805 but laid her up. The Navy finally commissioned her in 1809. She was at the British invasion of Île de France and later served in the Channel, the North Sea, the Baltic, and the Chesapeake. She was broken up in 1816.
Rear Admiral William Duddingston (1740–1817) was an 18th-century Scottish commander in the Royal Navy, of fame for the Gaspee Affair, one of the precursors to the American War of Independence.
HMS Gaspée was purchased in North America in 1772, commissioned in 1773, and captured in 1775. The Royal Navy recaptured her in 1776. She was recommissioned and served again until prepared for disposal at the end of 1777. At some point she was at the "Battle of Fundy", but when this occurred and what her role was is currently obscure.
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