In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
The rating system of the Royal Navy and its predecessors was used by the Royal Navy between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century to categorise sailing warships, initially classing them according to their assigned complement of men, and later according to the number of their carriage-mounted guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy formally came to an end in the late 19th century by declaration of the Admiralty. The main cause behind this declaration focused on new types of gun, the introduction of steam propulsion and the use of iron and steel armour which made rating ships by the number of guns obsolete.
Launched on 21 May 1797, GB No. 21 was renamed HMS Defender on 7 August the same year. She was a 12-gun Courser-class gun-brig built for the British Royal Navy at Limehouse and disposed of in 1802.
The Cherokee class was a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy, mounting ten guns. Brig-sloops were sloops-of-war with two masts rather than the three masts of ship sloops. Orders for 115 vessels were placed, including five which were cancelled and six for which the orders were replaced by ones for equivalent steam-powered paddle vessels.
The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging. A ship-sloop was rigged with three masts whereas a brig-sloop was rigged as a brig with only a fore mast and a main mast.
The Crocus-class brig-sloops were a class of sloop-of-war built for the Royal Navy, and were the only Royal Navy brig-sloops ever designed rated for 14 guns. The class was designed by the Surveyors of the Navy jointly, and approved on 28 March 1807. Unlike the vast majority of other British brig-sloops built for the Royal Navy in this wartime period, which were built by contractors, construction of the Crocus class was confined to the Admiralty's own dockyards. One vessel was ordered from each of the Royal Dockyards on 30 March; four more were ordered in 1808 and a final unit in 1810. All the ships of the class survived the Napoleonic Wars and were broken up between 1815 and 1815.
The Fly class were built for the Royal Navy as a class of 16-gun brig-sloops; an extra two carronades were added soon after completion. The class was designed by one of the Surveyors of the Navy - Sir John Henslow - and approved in 1805. The Admiralty ordered five vessels to this design in January 1805; it ordered two more in the summer, although this final pair were planked with hulls of pitch pine ("fir") rather than the normal oak used in the first five.
HMS Melampus was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She captured numerous prizes before the British sold her to the Royal Netherlands Navy in 1815. With the Dutch, she participated in a major action at Algiers and, then, in a number of colonial punitive expeditions in the Dutch East Indies.
Égyptienne was a French frigate launched at Toulon in 1799. Her first service was in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1801, in which the British captured her at Alexandria. She famously carried the Rosetta Stone to Woolwich, and then the Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as the 40-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Egyptienne. She served in a number of single-ship actions before being reduced to harbour service in 1807, and was sold for breaking in 1817.
The Cormorant class were built as a class of 16-gun ship sloops for the Royal Navy, although they were re-rated as 18-gun ships soon after completion.
HMS Raven was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Perry, Wells and Green at Blackwall Yard and launched in 1804. Although she embodied some interesting innovations tailored for service in the area of the Straits of Gibraltar, she was wrecked before she got on station and never tested them. Her captain, the innovator, was the subject of a miscarriage of justice at his court martial for the loss of the ship from which his career never recovered.
The action of 4 April 1808 was a naval engagement off the coast off Rota near Cadiz, Spain where Royal Naval frigates Mercury, Alceste and Grasshopper intercepted a large Spanish convoy protected by twenty gunboats and a train of batteries close to shore.
The Diligence class were built as a class of eight 18-gun brig-sloops for the Royal Navy. They were originally to have carried sixteen 6-pounder carriage guns, but on 22 April, 1795 it was instructed that they should be armed with sixteen 32-pounder carronades, although two of the 6-pounders were retained as chase guns in the bows. Consequently they were classed as 18-gun sloops. However, in service it was found that this armament proved too heavy for these vessels, and so in most vessels the 32-pounder carronades were replaced by 24-pounder ones.
The Albatross class were built as a class of eight 18-gun brig-sloops for the Royal Navy. They were originally to have carried sixteen 6-pounder carriage guns, but on 22 April 1795 it was instructed that they should be armed with sixteen 32-pounder carronades, although two of the 6-pounders were retained as chase guns in the bows. Consequently, they were classed as 18-gun sloops. However, in service it was found that this armament proved too heavy for these vessels, and so in most vessels the 32-pounder carronades were replaced by 24-pounder ones.
HMS Constant was an Archer–class gun-brig of the Royal Navy, launched in 1801 for service against the French during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She was variously stationed in English home waters, the Baltic, the Caribbean, and off the coast of Spain, and was responsible for the capture of at least seven enemy vessels during her fifteen years at sea. The Royal Navy sold Constant at Chatham Dockyard in 1816.
Launched on 24 April 1797, the gunboat GB No. 19 was reclassed as a gun-brig and renamed HMS Steady on 7 August the same year. She was a 12-gun Courser-class gun-brig built for the British Royal Navy at Limehouse. She sailed to the West Indies in early 1800. She was paid off in February 1803 but then recalled to service in 1805 as HMS Oronooko, a temporary prison ship at Trinidad. The Navy sold her at Barbados in 1806.
The Snake-class ship-sloops were a class of four Royal Navy sloops-of-war built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Though ships of the class were designed with the hull of a brig, their defining feature of a ship-rig changed their classification to that of a ship-sloop rather than that of a brig-sloop.
The Perseverance-class frigate was a 36-gun, later 42-gun, 18-pounder fifth-rate frigate class of twelve ships of the Royal Navy, constructed in two batches. Designed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir Edward Hunt the first iteration, consisting of four ships, was constructed as a rival to the similar Flora-class frigate. Strongly built ships, the Perseverance class provided favourable gunnery characteristics and was highly manoeuvrable, but bought these traits with a loss of speed. The name ship of the class, Perseverance, was ordered in 1779 and participated in the American Revolutionary War, but her three sister ships were constructed too late to take part. The class continued in service after the war, but soon became outdated.
Royal Navy