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The Royal Navy has used the name Comet no fewer than 18 times:
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have carried the name HMS Spitfire, while an eleventh was planned but renamed before entering service. All are named after the euphemistic translation of Cacafuego, a Spanish treasure galleon captured by Sir Francis Drake.
HMS York was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 24 March 1796. She served briefly in the West Indies where she captured numerous small vessels. She was wrecked in 1804.
HMS Nonsuch was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Israel Pownoll and launched on 17 December 1774 at Plymouth. She was broken up in 1802.
Vestale was a Blonde-class 30-gun frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1761, but had to scuttle her in 1778 to avoid having the French recapture her. She was refloated and sold to the French in 1784. She returned to wartime service in 1794 as a privateer. The British recaptured her in 1798 and broke her up thereafter.
Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Hawk after the bird of prey, the hawk:
HMS Lark was a 32-gun Richmond-class frigate fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1762 and destroyed in Narragansett Bay in 1778, during the American Revolutionary War.
HMS Porpoise was a 12-gun sloop-of-war originally built in Bilbao, Spain, as the packet ship Infanta Amelia. On 6 August 1799 HMS Argo captured her off the coast of Portugal. Porpoise wrecked in 1803 on the North coast of what was then part of the Colony of New South Wales, now called Wreck Reefs, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
HMS Sprightly was a 10-gun cutter of the Royal Navy, built to a design by John Williams, and the name ship of her two-vessel class of cutters. She was launched in 1778. The French captured and scuttled her off the Andulasian coast in 1801.
Vice-Admiral Philippe d'Auvergne was a British Royal Navy officer who was the adopted son of Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne, the Duke of Bouillon. He chose a career in the Navy that spanned a period of history where Great Britain was at the centre of wars and empire building and took him from Boston and the War of Independence to espionage with French Royalists; prisoner of war to shipwrecked; all this whilst hoping to become a Walloon ruler or, at least, heir to a princely fortune.
HMS Kingfisher was the second ship in the 14-gun Swan class of ship sloops, to which design 25 vessels were built in the 1760s and 1770s. She was launched on 13 July 1770 at Chatham Dockyard, and completed there on 21 November 1770. She took part in the American Revolutionary War, enforcing the blockade of the Delaware Bay, and served in the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet, near Cape May, New Jersey. While under the temporary command of Lieutenant Hugh Christian, she was burnt by her own crew to avoid capture on 7 August 1778 in Narragansett Bay during the Battle of Rhode Island.
Royal Charlotte was launched in 1789 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She made two trips to China for the EIC and on the second of these, after the outbreak of war with France in 1793, assisted at the British capture of Pondicherry. Then, the Admiralty, desirous of quickly building up the Royal Navy, purchased a number of commercial vessels, including nine East Indiamen, to meet the need for small two-decker fourth rates to serve as convoy escorts. The Admiralty purchased Royal Charlotte in 1795 and renamed her HMS Malabar. She made a trip to the West Indies where she was the lead ship of a small squadron that captured some Dutch colonies. She foundered in 1796 while escorting a convoy in the North Atlantic.
HMS Deux Amis was the French privateer schooner Deux Amis, launched in 1796. The British captured her in December 1796 and the Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name. She made one capture before wrecking in May 1799.
Two vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name, HM galley Pigot. Both were acquired in 1778 during the American Revolutionary War, and both were lost that year; her crew destroyed the first to avoid her capture, and the Americans captured the second. Both were named for General Sir Robert Pigot, the general commanding the British Army at Newport, Rhode Island, during their service there.
HMS Diligent was a brig the Royal Navy purchased in 1777. The Continental Navy captured her in May 1779 and took her into service as the USS Diligent. She then participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition where her crew had to scuttle her in August to prevent her capture.
HMS Weymouth was laid down as the East Indiaman Earl of Mansfield. The British Royal Navy purchased her on the stocks to use as a 56-gun fourth rate. She was launched in 1795 but never was commissioned in the Royal Navy. She was transferred in February 1796 to the Transportation Board as a transport. Lieutenant Robert Passmore took command in June 1796. Commander Charles Ryder succeeded Passmore in July 1798, and Commander Ambrose Crofton replaced Ryder in August 1799.
HMS Shamrock was a schooner built at Bermuda in 1808 of Bermuda cedar. She was built for the Royal Navy and was the name-ship of her class of 10-gun schooners. She was wrecked in 1811.
HMS Greenwich was the American privateer Greenwich that HMS Maidstone captured on 20 April 1778. She served for a little more than a year, particularly at Georgia, before she was burnt in May 1779.
The British Royal Navy purchased two vessels in 1795, both named HMS Friendship. Both were lost in November 1801. The parallels in names and dates has resulted in the two vessels, and their fates, probably being conflated.
Grenville was launched at Deptford in 1764 as an East Indiaman. She made four voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) before her owners sold her in 1777 to the Royal Navy, which renamed her HMS Tortoise and employed her as a transport. She foundered in 1779.
References
- Ashelford, Jane (2008). In the English Service: The Life of Philippe D'Auvergne. Jersey Heritage Trust. ISBN 978-0955250880.
- Hackman, Rowan (2001). Ships of the East India Company. Gravesend, Kent: World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-96-7.
- Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
- Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1844157006.