During the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, there were two or three vessels known as His Majesty's hired armedcutterActive that served the British Royal Navy. The reason for the uncertainty in the number is that the size of the vessels raises the possibility that the first and second may have been the same vessel.
Active served the Royal Navy from 12 May 1794 to 22 November 1800. She was of 712⁄94 tons (bm) and carried ten 3-pounder guns.[1]
In 1795 Active served as Royal Escort for Princess Caroline of Brunswick.[2]
Active's next noteworthy appearance occurred when she signalled the approach of the Dutch fleet to Admiral Adam Duncan before his victory at Camperdown on 11 October 1797. Her commander, Master John Hamilton, was on the deck of Venerable when Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter surrendered his sword.[3] As a member of the fleet, even though she did not participate in the combat, she was entitled to share in the £120,000 in prize money for the sale of the Dutch ships captured then.[4] In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General service Medal with clasp "Camperdown" to any surviving claimants from the action. Active's officers and crew qualified.[5]
Active participated in the disastrous Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland against the Batavian Republic under Vice-admiral Andrew Mitchell and Lieutenant General Ralph Abercromby. On 28 August 1799, she and the hired armed cutter Swan participated in the capture of the Dutch hulks Drotchterland and Broederschap, and the ships Helder, Venus, Minerva, and Hector, in the New Diep, in Holland. Prize money for these vessels was due to be paid on 24 February 1802.
On 9 October 1800, while Active was on the River Ems and still under Hamilton's command, a French privateer, together with some Dutch gunboats, captured her.[6]Active was anchored for the night some five miles below Delfsul when the privateer and the gunboats came up and captured her. They took her into Delfsul.[7] The French took Active into service as Victoire.
The hired armed brig Lady Ann, of 16 guns and under the command of Lieutenant John Lake, recaptured Active off Flamborough Head on 16 May 1801, after a running fight and chase of 17 hours.[8]Victoire was operating as a privateer, was armed with fourteen 4-pounder guns, and had a crew of 75 men. She was under the command of Jean Beville. Lake found that his prisoners far outnumbered his small crew so he made first for Bridlington where he landed 55 of the prisoners, and then sailed on to Yarmouth with the prize and another 20 prisoners.[8]
The second hired cutter Active
The second hired cutter Active served the Royal Navy on two contracts. The first was from 5 June 1803 to 4 August.[9] She was renamed the Lord Keith in 1804. As Lord Keith she served from 14 February 1804 to 11 January 1808.[9]Lord Keith was of 7173⁄94 tons (bm) and was armed with six 4-pounder guns.[9]
In 1805 she was under the command of Lieutenant Morris. Between 23 and 25 April 1805 Lord Keith was a part of a squadron that captured the Dutch armed schuyts No. s 43, 45, 48, 52, 54, and 57, and the unarmed Transport No. 3, all off Boulogne.[10]
On 26 May 1807, Lord Keith was in company with Resolution and some other vessels when they captured Hopet and Neptunis.[11] On 28 June Lord Keith was in company with Crescent when they captured Liebe.[lower-alpha 1] Two days later they captured Minerva.[13] Then on 15 July the cutter captured the Vrouwengast.[14] On 6 August, Resolution, Lynx, and Lord Keith were in company when they captured the Danish vessel Adjutor.[15] On 3 August she and Resolution captured Zeldenrust.[16] Lastly, on 1 September, Lord Keith captured the Danish Ship Welfornyet.[17]
On 11 January 1808 a violent gale drove Lord Keith into Cuxhaven where the French captured her.[9] At the time of her capture, Lord Keith was under the command of Lieutenant Mitchell Roberts. The French managed to rescue her entire crew. (The storm that wrecked Lord Keith also wrecked HMSSparkler.[18])
The third hired cutter Active
The third hired cutter Active served from 14 June 1803 to 4 May 1814. She had a burthen of 7759⁄94 tons and was armed with eight 4-pounder guns.[9]
In 1803 Active was under the command first of Lieutenant J. Walker and then Lieutenant E. Tritton.[19]
On 20 February 1804, while under the commanded of Lieutenant John Williams, and with a crew of about 30 men and boys, Active was off Gravelines when she sighted 16 sail of French gun-boats and transports running from Ostend towards Boulogne.[20] Williams immediately gave chase and soon commenced a running fight with the flotilla. Shortly thereafter he compelled the outermost vessel, a horse-transport, to strike. The delay occasioned in taking possession of the horse transport Jeune Isabelle enabled the other vessels to get under the protection of shore batteries before Active could resume the pursuit.[20][21] Prize money was due to be paid on 3 April 1805.
On 5 September 1805, Active captured Sophia Amelia.[lower-alpha 2] Ten days later Active, under the command of Lieutenant William Barnes, recaptured the sloop Providence.[23] The next day Active recaptured Betsey Francis.[lower-alpha 3]
Active was in the Channel later in 1807 and there encountered the French privateer Renarde, of Calais. An inconclusive engagement followed in which the French vessel had eight men killed and seven wounded before she escaped. Skylark captured Renarde on 7 November 1807.[25]
On 26 August 1807, Active, under the command of Lieutenant T.B.A. Hicks, captured Boletta Elizabeth. That same day Active captured Junge Hendrick.[lower-alpha 4] Two days later Hicks captured Fornoyelsen. On 3 March 1810 prize monies resulting from the capture of Boletta Elizabeth and Fornoyelsen were due for payment. The notice referred to Hicks, as "the late".[27]Active shared the award for Fornoyelsen with the fireship Phosphorus.[28]
On 13 January 1808, Pandora, Commander Henry Hume Spence, captured the French privateer Entreprenant, of 16 guns and 58 men.[29] The chase took an hour and forty minutes and finished two miles from the French coast under the batteries near Cap Gris Nez.[29]Entreprenant would not stop until her captain, M. Bloudin, her second captain, and four or five men had been wounded and Pandora had run alongside her. She had been out of Calais for three days and had taken the brig Mary, of Sunderland. Active, under the command of Lieutenant Robert Ellary,[30] joined in the chase and took off some of the prisoners.[29][lower-alpha 5]
Lieutenant James Askey commanded Active in 1810. On 11 January 1809, Active, under the command of Mr. John Middleton, captured the French privateer St. Jago et Erfurt.[32] On 4 July Active was under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Cousins when she captured the Dutch smack Erasmus.[33] This may have occurred while she was participating in the debacle that was the Walcheren Campaign.[34]
On 11 March 1811 Active arrived at Deal, Kent, with a prize, from off the Scaw at the entrance to the Kattegat.
In 1812, Active came under the command of Lieutenant Josias Bray.[lower-alpha 6]
Active spent the rest of her contract carrying dispatches to and from Flushing. On 8 December 1812, she arrived at Harwich, having brought his Excellency Prince Kollosky, Envoy Extraordinary from Russia to Sardinia, from Gothenburg. Bray transferred to the hired armed cutter Badger, which he commanded in 1813–1814.
On 27 March 1814 Active, under the command of James Rogers, recaptured Telemachus.[36] The next day Active arrived at Deal from the Scheldt having detained and brought in a brig from St Ubes, Portugal.
Notes
↑ A seaman's share of the prize money was £1 3s2+1⁄2d.[12]
↑ The prize money due her captain was £5 14s 7+1⁄2d. That for a seaman was 9s 3+3⁄4d.[22]
↑ The prize money for an ordinary seaman for the last two vessels was 3s 6d.[24]
↑ The prize money to Hicks was £284 2s. The prize money for an ordinary seaman was £13 10s 7d. Unfortunately, this money was not declared and paid until June 1819.[26]
↑ Entreprenant, from Boulogne, had been commissioned in December 1807 under a Captain Blondin, with 50–60 men and 16 guns. Pandora captured both Entreprenant and her prize.[31]
↑ Several sources conflate Josias Bray with James Bray, late commander of HMSPlumper.[35]
HMS Boadicea was a frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the Channel and in the East Indies during which service she captured many prizes. She participated in one action for which the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1858.
HMS Cerberus was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She served in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars in the Channel, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and even briefly in the Baltic against the Russians. She participated in one boat action that won for her crew a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She also captured many privateers and merchant vessels. Her biggest battle was the Battle of Lissa, which won for her crew another clasp to the NGSM. She was sold in 1814.
HMS Amethyst was a Royal Navy 36-gun Penelope-class fifth-rate frigate, launched in 1799 at Deptford. Amethyst served in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, capturing several prizes. She also participated in two boat actions and two ship actions that won her crew clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was broken up in 1811 after suffering severe damage in a storm.
HMS Scorpion was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1803. She was the first of the class to be built since the launching of Cruizer in 1797. Scorpion had a long and active career during the Napoleonic Wars, earning her crews three clasps to the Naval General Service Medal when the Admiralty authorized it in 1847, two for single-ship actions. She also took a number of prizes. Scorpion was sold in 1819.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars the Admiralty also made use of hired armed vessels, one of which was His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Swan. Actually there were two such cutters, but the descriptions of these vessels and the dates of their service are such that they may well represent one vessel under successive contracts. The vessel or vessels cruised, blockaded, carried despatches and performed reconnaissance.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy used several vessels that bore the designation His Majesty's hired armed cutter Lord Nelson, all named for Lord Horatio Nelson.
The Royal Navy used several vessels that were described as His Majesty's hired armed cutter King George. Some of these may have been the same vessel on repeat contract.
His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Princess Augusta served the Royal Navy from 12 July 1803 to 2 May 1814. She was armed with eight 4-pounder guns, had a complement of 26 men, and was of 7056⁄94 tons (bm). She participated in several single ship actions and took several prizes before the Navy returned her to her owners near the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Basilisk was a Bloodhound-class gun-brig built by Randall in Rotherhithe and launched in 1801. She served briefly at the end of the French Revolutionary Wars, with most of her service occurring during the Napoleonic Wars protecting convoys from privateers, conducting close-inshore surveillance and taking enemy coastal shipping. She was sold for breaking in 1815.
His Majesty's hired armed cutter Courier appears twice in the records of the British Royal Navy. The size and armament suggests that both contracts could represent the same vessel, but other information indicates that the second Courier had been captured from the French in the West Indies. On the first contract the captain and crew were awarded clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, one for a boat action and one for a single ship action in which they distinguished themselves.
HMS Entreprenante, was a 10-gun cutter that the Royal Navy captured from the French in 1798. The British commissioned her in 1799 and she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, participating in the Battle of Trafalgar. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She took part in several small engagements, capturing Spanish and French ships before she was sold in 1812 for breaking up.
HMS Cruizer was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Stephen Teague of Ipswich and launched in 1797. She was the first ship of the class, but there was a gap of 5 years between her launch and the ordering of the next batch in October 1803; by 1815 a total of 105 other vessels had been ordered to her design. She had an eventful wartime career, mostly in the North Sea, English Channel and the Baltic, and captured some 15 privateers and warships, and many merchant vessels. She also participated in several actions. She was laid up in 1813 and the Commissioners of the Navy sold her for breaking in 1819.
HMS Carrier was a cutter of 10 guns, the ex-mercantile Frisk, which the Royal Navy purchased in 1805. She captured two privateers, with one action earning her crew a Naval General Service Medal. She grounded in 1808, which enabled the French to capture her. She became a French privateer that the Royal Navy recaptured in 1811, but apparently did not take back into service.
HMS Linnet was originally His Majesty's revenue cutter Speedwell, launched in 1797, that the Royal Navy purchased in 1806. Linnet captured a number of privateers before the French frigate Gloire captured her in 1813. The French sold or transferred her to the Americans, who operated her as the privateer Bunkers Hill. In March 1814 the British recaptured her, but did not return her to service.
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.
Twelve ships of the French Navy have borne the name Entreprenant and four Entreprenante, after the French word for "enterprising"
HMS Pandora was launched in 1806. She captured two privateers before she was wrecked in February 1811 off the coast of Jutland.
HMS Skylark was a British Royal Navy 16-gun brig-sloop of the Seagull class launched in February 1806. She served primarily in the Channel, capturing several vessels including a privateer, and taking part in one notable engagement. She grounded in May 1812 and her crew burnt her to prevent the French from capturing her.
HMS Plumper was launched in 1807. She captured three small American privateers early in the War of 1812 but was wrecked in December 1812.
HMS Tickler was a cutter built at Dover in 1798 as the mercantile Lord Duncan. Between October 1798 and October 1801 she served the Royal Navy as the hired armed cutter Lord Duncan. Lord Duncan captured or recaptured several vessels, including one privateer. The Navy purchased Lord Duncan in October 1808 and renamed her HMS Tickler. It sold her in 1816.
References
Demerliac, Alain (2003). La Marine du Consulat et du Premier Empire: Nomenclature des Navires Français de 1800 A 1815 (in French). Éditions Ancre. ISBN2-903179-30-1.
Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras. London: Chatham. ISBN1861760302.
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN0-948864-30-3.
James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. Vol.3. R. Bentley.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
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