During the French Revolutionary War Trompeuse, meaning “misleading” or “deceptive”, was a popular name for French naval vessels, privateers, and even merchant vessels. Warships of the Royal Navy captured or destroyed at least four vessels under that name.
A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. The commission, also known as a letter of marque, empowers the person to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war, including attacking foreign vessels during wartime and taking them as prizes. Historically, captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided between the privateer sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Since robbery under arms was once common to seaborne trade, all merchant ships were already armed. During war, naval resources were auxiliary to operations on land so privateering was a way of subsidizing state power by mobilizing armed ships and sailors.
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years War against the Kingdom of France. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century; the oldest of the UK's armed services, it is known as the Senior Service.
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- On 12 January 1794, the post ship HMS Sphynx captured the 18-gun French Navy brig Trompeuse, which the Royal Navy took into service under her own name. [1]
- In May 1797 HMS Spitfire, under the command of Captain Michael Seymour, captured the French schooner Trompeuse of six guns and 40 men. [2] Trompeuse, of Morlaix, had been out five days and had taken two Prussian vessels, one sailing to Liverpool and the other to Oporto. [3]
- On 17 September 1797, on the Jamaica station, HMS Pelican, with HMS Drake in sight, engaged and destroyed the French privateer Trompeuse, of 12 guns and 78 men. [4]
- On 9 June 1801 the schooner HMS Gozo (misspelled as Gogo), captured the chasse maree Trompeuse, which was sailing to Ancona. [5]
Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the second half of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars to describe a ship of the sixth rate that was smaller than a frigate, but by virtue of being a rated ship, had to have as its captain a post captain rather than a lieutenant or commander. Thus ships with 20 to 26 guns were post ships, though this situation changed after 1817.
HMS Drake was a 14-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was bought from a commercial builder during the early years of the American War of Independence, and went on to support operations in the English Channel and the Caribbean. At one stage she assisted an attack on a French-held island, an expedition commanded by a young Horatio Nelson. Laid up for a time after the end of the American War of Independence, she returned to service shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars. Drake spent most of her time in Caribbean waters, until being declared unfit for service in 1800 and deleted from the navy lists.
HMS Malta was the Spanish 10-gun schooner Malta, built and launched in the United States of America in 1797. The British captured her in 1800. After the Royal Navy captured the French ship-of-the-line Guillaume Tell and renamed her HMS Malta, the Admiralty renamed the schooner Gozo in December 1800 after the Maltese island of Gozo.
