HMS Eurydice (1781)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svgGreat Britain
NameHMS Eurydice
Ordered24 July 1776
Builder Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid downFebruary 1777
Launched26 March 1781
Completed3 June 1781
Honours and
awards
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Martinique" [1]
FateBroken up in March 1834
General characteristics
Class and type24-gun Porcupine-class post ship
Tons burthen521.3 (bm)
Length
  • 114 ft 3 in (34.82 m) (overall)
  • 94 ft 2+34 in (28.721 m) (keel)
Beam32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)
Draught
  • 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m)
  • 11 ft (3.4 m)
Depth of hold10 ft 3 in (3.12 m)
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Complement160 (140 by 1815)
Armament
  • As built:
  • Upper deck (UD): 22 × 9-pounder guns
  • QD: 2 × 6-pounder bow chasers
  • By 1815:
  • UD: 14 × 9-pounder guns + 8 × 18-pounder carronades
  • QD: 2 × 6-pounder guns

HMS Eurydice was a 24-gun Porcupine-class post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1781 and broken up in 1834. During her long career she saw service in the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. She captured a number of enemy privateers and served in the East and West Indies, the Mediterranean and British and American waters.

Contents

Construction and commissioning

Eurydice was ordered from Portsmouth Dockyard on 24 July 1776, and was laid down in February 1777. She was initially worked on by Master Shipwright Nicholas Phillips until April 1779, and then by George White. She was launched on 26 March 1781 and completed for service on 3 June 1781. She had cost £12,391.4.0d to build, this sum including fitting and coppering. She was commissioned under her first captain, George Wilson, in March 1781.

Career

American War of Independence

Wilson sailed initially to the Leeward Islands, arriving in Frigate Bay, St Kitts on either 25 or 26 January 1782. Eurydice was present at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782, and then returned to Britain carrying the dispatches.

She came under the command of Captain George Courtnay in April 1782, under whom she served in the English Channel and off the Channel Islands. She joined John Elliot’s squadron in Autumn 1782 and on 14 October 1782 she captured the French Amis off Île de Batz.

Eurydice was paid off between 1782 and 1783 but recommissioned in April 1783. An 18-year-old Fletcher Christian, later to be the instigator of the mutiny on the Bounty, [2] signed on aboard HMS Eurydice on 25 April 1783 at Spithead. She was the first Royal Navy ship that Christian signed on to. [3]

Eurydice's next posting was to the East Indies, to which she sailed on 10 April 1783. On 24 May 1784, in Madras, Christian was promoted to acting lieutenant and watch leader.

Eurydice returned to Britain and was again paid off in July 1785, and spent between January and April 1786 undergoing a small repair at Woolwich Dockyard at a cost of £2,290. She was fitted for sea at Woolwich at a cost of £3,386 between May and July 1788, during which she was recommissioned in June 1788 under Captain George Lumsdaine.

French Revolutionary Wars

Lumsdaine sailed for service in the Mediterranean on 27 November 1788. With war with Revolutionary France looming, she was fitted out by Wells & Co for £1,856 between February and March 1793, and then at Woolwich for a further £3,507 between March and June 1793. Eurydice was then recommissioned under Captain Francis Cole in April 1793.

"We are to holystone the decks from 4 o'clock in the morning until 8.

If a man should rest he is kicked in the face and bleeds on the stone, and afterwards made to wash the stone from the blood and then reported to the captain and flogged for no provocation ...

Mr Colvile our First Lieutenant and Mr McCloud our master's mate are beyond description and so tyrannical that such officers are a disgrace to the service.

We wish to have them discharged from the ship."

—From a unanimous petition of the crew, HMS Eurydice, 24 April 1796 [4]

On 8 June 1794, Eurydice, along with the 36-gun Crescent, the 32-gun Druid, and six smaller vessels, all under the command of Sir James Saumarez were sent from Plymouth to reconnoitre the French coast. Off the north-west coast of Guernsey they encountered the two 50-gun French razeesScévola and Brutus – the two 36-gun frigates Danaé and Félicité, and a 14-gun brig. Saumarez ordered Eurydice, his slowest ship, into port to avoid her capture and then lured the French ships into range of Guernsey's shore-based guns. He then turned across the line of the French ships and through a narrow passage between the rocks, which enabled him to escape. A memorial plaque at Castle Cornet in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, depicts the encounter. [5]

Eurydice was at Plymouth on 20 January 1795 and so shared in the proceeds of the detention of the Dutch naval vessels, East Indiamen, and other merchant vessels that were in port on the outbreak of war between Britain and the Netherlands. [6]

Eurydice came under the command of Captain Thomas Twysden in 1795, with Twysden being succeeded by Captain Richard Bennet in 1796. During this time she operated on convoy and cruising duties. Harsh treatment of the crew led to considerable unhappiness aboard the ship. On 24 April the crew unanimously put their names to a petition to Admiralty, accusing the first lieutenant and the master's mate of conduct "so tyrannical that such officers are a disgrace to the service." [4]

Admiralty convened a court martial to try the sailor suspected of drafting the petition, but he was acquitted as there was insufficient evidence that it was in his handwriting. No charges were laid against the officers of the ship, but Captain Bennett was removed from his command and the ship placed in ordinary until a replacement was found. [7]

Return to service

Eurydice was recommissioned in August 1796 under Captain John Talbot and was deployed in the North Sea. She captured the French privateer Sphinx on 15 December 1796, the 14-gun Flibustier on 6 February 1797 and Voligeur on 7 March. The next day she was in sight, as were Fairy and hired armed cutter Grace, when Racoon captured the galiot Concordia. [8]

On the morning of 10 November 1799 Eurydice was some 9 miles south-east of Beachy Head, when she sighted a schooner and a brig. The schooner made off as soon as she saw the ship and the brig hove to and hoisted her ensign upside down. She reported that she had been attacked by the schooner and that one of her men was badly wounded. Talbot sent his surgeon, Mr Price, on board the brig and made sail after the privateer. The sloop Snake joined in the chase later in the morning. Halfway through the afternoon Eurydice came nearly within gunshot of the privateer which bore up and tried to cross Snake. When this manoeuvre failed, the vessel lowered her sails and surrendered. She was the Hirondelle of Calais, commanded by Pierre Merie Dugerdin with a crew of 50 men, one of whom was found to be an Englishman. She was armed with fourteen 3- and 4-pounders and had sailed on the Saturday morning. The brig Eurydice had recaptured was the collier Diana, from Sunderland bound for Portsmouth. Her wounded man was brought on board Eurydice, where the surgeon had to remove an arm. [9]

On 29 April 1800 the gun-vessel Assault recaptured the brig Adventure, of London, while Eurydice and Childers were in sight. [10]

Eurydice was refitted at Portsmouth and in January 1801 came under the command of Captain Walter Bathurst. Bathurst captured the privateer Bougainville, of Saint Malo, in the Atlantic on 8 May 1801. She was under the command of Jaques le Bon, had a crew of 67 men, and was armed with 14 guns of different calibre. She was out three days and had made no captures. [11]

Eurydice sailed for the East Indies on 20 October 1801.

After her return to Britain she was refitted in 1803, and commissioned in September 1803 under Captain John Nicholas. Under Nicolas she escorted a convoy to Quebec, departing Britain on 16 May 1804.

Napoleonic Wars

Captain William Hoste took command in November 1804, and Eurydice served under him in the Mediterranean throughout 1805.

On 14 November 1804 Eurydice was in company with HMS Bittern when they recaptured the hired armed ship Lord Eldon and sent her into Gibraltar. Spanish gunboats had captured her off Algeciras two days earlier. [lower-alpha 1]

Eurydice shared with Merlin and Prevoyante in the proceeds from the capture on 11 June 1805 of the Prussian ship Edward. The proceeds were forwarded from Gibraltar. [14] Eurydice captured the 6-gun privateer Mestuo La Solidade on 6 October, before passing under the command of Captain Sir William Bolton in December that year. Eurydice spent 1806 and 1807 in the Channel, before acting-Captain David Ramsey took over in August 1808.

She was later under Captain James Bradshaw and was present at the capture of Martinique in February 1809. In 1847 the Admiralty authorised the clasp "Martinique" to the Naval General Service Medal to all surviving participants in that campaign.

Eurydice spent 1809 to 1811 on the North American Station, undertaking a number of cruises out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in company with the ships at the station. [lower-alpha 2] She then returned to Britain and spent 1812 to 1814 in ordinary at Deptford. She underwent a temporary repair at Deptford between September 1813 and June 1814; and was subsequently fitted for sea there between August and October 1814.

Post-war and fate

Eurydice was recommissioned in August 1814 under Captain Valentine Gardner and by June 1815 was under Captain Robert Spencer and serving on the Irish Station. Her final seagoing service was off St Helena under Captain Robert Wauchope, who took command in April 1816.

In February 1818 the merchantman Atlas, Joseph Short, master, was sailing from Dundee when she encountered a Portuguese brig with 360 slaves from Mozambique. Atlas sent the brig into the Cape of Good Hope where Eurydice detained the brig. [16]

On 8 January 1819, two seamen on Hibernia behaved in a mutinous manner as she transported convicts from England to Van Diemen's Land. The rest of the crew objected to the men being put in irons, but eventually all but two others returned to their duties. When Hibernia reached Rio de Janeiro, Lennon asked Captain Wauchope for assistance. Eventually 12 men from Hibernia joined Eurydice's crew; Wauchope sent only three men in return. The resulting crew shortage on Hibernia delayed her sailing. [17]

Eurydice was laid up at Deptford in December 1819 but moved in 1821 to Woolwich. She was fitted as a receiving ship there between August 1823 and January 1824, spending the rest of her career in this role. She was finally broken up at Deptford in March 1834.

Notes

  1. Although the London Gazette gives the date of recapture as 14 November 1805, [12] the news item from Lloyd's List makes it clear that the recapture took place in November 1804, so most probably 14 November 1804. [13]
  2. Diaries kept by a local merchant, John Liddel, indicate some cruises undertaken by HMS Eurydice during her time at Nova Scotia in 1810: [15]
    • 16 June HMS Eurydice, accompanied by HMS Indian (18 guns) sailed from Halifax.
    • 1 September HMS Eurydice & accompanied by HMS Indian returned from Fayal.
    • 16 September HMS Halifax (sloop-of-war) and HMS Eurydice go on a cruise.
    • 4 November HMS Halifax and HMS Eurydice come in.
    • 28 November HMS Eurydice and HMS Indian go on a cruise.

Citations

  1. "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. p. 242.
  2. Mutiny on the HMS Bounty: Bligh, Christian, Pitcairn, Norfolk Archived 5 December 2000 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "Fletcher Christian Chronology". Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2009.
  4. 1 2 Petition, HMS Eurydice, 1796. Cited in Lavery (ed.) 1998, p. 425
  5. Admiral Saumarez
  6. "No. 15407". The London Gazette . 15 September 1801. p. 1145.
  7. Lavery (ed.) 1998, p. 420
  8. "No. 15329". The London Gazette . 17 January 1801. p. 89.
  9. "No. 15203". The London Gazette . 12 November 1799. p. 1168.
  10. "No. 15299". The London Gazette . 4 October 1800. p. 1146.
  11. "No. 15365". The London Gazette . 12 May 1801. p. 536.
  12. "No. 16615". The London Gazette . 20 June 1812. p. 1210.
  13. Lloyd's List, no.4276, – accessed 4 March 2015.
  14. "No. 16111". The London Gazette . 19 January 1808. p. 113.
  15. History of Nova Scotia, Book 2, John Liddell Diaries (Halifax Merchant)
  16. Lloyd's List , 15 May 1818, №5280.
  17. Text of a deposition by Lennon and his officers to the British Consul General at Rio.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Galatea</i> (1794) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Galatea was a fifth-rate 32-gun sailing frigate of the British Royal Navy that George Parsons built at Bursledon and launched in 1794. Before she was broken up in 1809 she captured numerous prizes and participated in a number of actions, first in the Channel and off Ireland (1794–1803), and then in the Caribbean (1802–1809), including one that earned her crew the Naval General Service Medal.

HMS <i>Leander</i> (1780) Portland-class fourth rate of the Royal Navy

HMS Leander was a Portland-class 50-gun fourth rate of the Royal Navy, launched at Chatham on 1 July 1780. She served on the West Coast of Africa, West Indies, and the Halifax station. During the French Revolutionary Wars she participated in the Battle of the Nile before a French ship captured her. The Russians and Turks recaptured her and returned her to the Royal Navy in 1799. On 23 February 1805, while on the Halifax station, Leander captured the French frigate Ville de Milan and recaptured her prize, HMS Cleopatra. On 25 April 1805, cannon fire from Leander killed an American seaman while Leander was trying to search an American vessel off the US coast for contraband. The resulting "Leander affair" contributed to the worsening of relations between the United States and Great Britain. In 1813, the Admiralty converted Leander to a hospital ship under the name Hygeia. Hygeia was sold in 1817.

HMS <i>Minerva</i> (1780) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Minerva was a 38-gun fifth-rate Royal Navy frigate. The first of four Minerva-class frigates, she was launched on 3 June 1780, and commissioned soon thereafter. In 1798, she was renamed Pallas and employed as a troopship. She was broken up in 1803.

HMS <i>Zebra</i> (1780) British sloop-of-war (1780–1812

HMS Zebra was a 16-gun Zebra-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 31 August 1780 at Gravesend. She was the second ship to bear the name. After twenty years of service, including involvement in the West Indies campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars, she was converted into a bomb vessel in 1798. In this capacity she took part in attacks on French ports, and was present at both battles of Copenhagen. The Navy sold her in 1812.

HMS <i>Révolutionnaire</i> (1794) Frigate of the Royal Navy

Révolutionnaire, was a 40-gun Seine-class frigate of the French Navy, launched in May 1794. The British captured her in October 1794 and she went on to serve with the Royal Navy until she was broken up in 1822. During this service Revolutionnaire took part in numerous actions, including three for which the Admiralty would in 1847 award clasps to the Naval General Service Medal, and captured several privateers and merchant vessels.

HMS <i>Melampus</i> (1785) Frigate of the Royal Navy

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.

HMS <i>Inconstant</i> (1783) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Inconstant was a 36-gun Perseverance-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had a successful career serving in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing three French warships during the French Revolutionary naval campaigns, Curieux, Unité, and the former British ship HMS Speedy.

HMS Amphitrite was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. She served during the American Revolution primarily in the economic war. On the one hand she protected the trade by capturing or assisting at the capture of a number of privateers, some of which the Royal Navy then took into service. On the other hand, she also captured many American merchant vessels, most of them small. Amphitrite was wrecked early in 1794.

HMS <i>Santa Margarita</i> (1779) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Santa Margarita was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had been built for service with the Spanish Navy, but was captured after five years in service, eventually spending nearly 60 years with the British.

HMS <i>Mercury</i> (1779) Enterprise-class Royal Navy frigate

HMS Mercury was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the American War of Independence and serving during the later years of that conflict. She continued to serve during the years of peace and had an active career during the French Revolutionary Wars and most of the Napoleonic Wars, until being broken up in 1814.

HMS <i>Hind</i> (1785) Coventry-class Royal Navy frigate

HMS Hind was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

HMS <i>Cleopatra</i> (1779) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Cleopatra was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had a long career, seeing service during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. During the latter wars she fought two notable engagements with larger French opponents. In the first engagement she was forced to surrender, but succeeded in damaging the French ship so badly that she was captured several days later, while Cleopatra was retaken. In the second she forced the surrender of a 40-gun frigate. After serving under several notable commanders she was broken up towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

HMS <i>St Fiorenzo</i> (1794) Frigate of the Royal Navy

Minerve was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She operated in the Mediterranean during the French Revolutionary Wars. Her crew scuttled her at Saint-Florent to avoid capture when the British invaded Corsica in 1794, but the British managed to raise her and recommissioned her in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS St Fiorenzo.

HMS <i>Porcupine</i> (1777)

HMS Porcupine was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1777 and broken up in 1805. During her career she saw service in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.

HMS <i>Alligator</i> (1787) Enterprise-class Royal Navy frigate

HMS Alligator was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was originally ordered during the American War of Independence but was completed too late to see service during the conflict. Instead she had an active career during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

HMS <i>Adamant</i> (1780) British Portland-class fourth rate warship

HMS Adamant was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate warship of the British Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned thirty years.

HMS Nemesis was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The French captured her in 1795 at Smyrna, but in 1796 a squadron led by Barfleur brought her out of the neutral port of Tunis. Throughout her career she served under a number of commanders who would go on to have distinguished careers. She was converted to a troopship in 1812 and was sold in 1814.

HMS <i>Nymphe</i> (1780) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Nymphe was a fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy, formerly the French Nymphe, lead ship of her class. HMS Flora, under the command of Captain William Peere Williams, captured Nymphe off Ushant on 10 August 1780. Indiscriminately referred to as Nymph, Nymphe, La Nymph or La Nymphe in contemporary British sources, she served during the American, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. On 19 May 1793, while under the command of Captain Edward Pellew, she captured the frigate Cléopâtre, the first French warship captured in a single-ship action of the war. After a long period of service in which she took part in several notable actions and made many captures, Nymphe was wrecked off the coast of Scotland on 18 December 1810.

HMS <i>Greyhound</i> (1780) British navy cutter (1780–1809)

HMS Greyhound was a cutter that the British Admiralty purchased in 1780 and renamed Viper in 1781. Viper captured several French privateers in the waters around Great Britain, and took part in a notable engagement. She was sold in October 1809.

HMS Resolution was a cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1779. She captured two French privateers in 1781 and a Dutch privateer in 1783 after a single ship action. Resolution captured one more small French privateer in June 1797; later that month Resolution went missing in the North Sea, presumed to have foundered.

References