HMS Growler was a Courser-class gun-brig built for the British Royal Navy at Northfleet and launched in 1797 as GB No. 26; she was renamed Growler on 7 August the same year.
Lieutenant William Wall commissioned Growler in May. In August Lieutenant John Hollingsworth replaced Wall.
Capture: The French privateers Espiègle and Rusé captured Growler off Dungeness on 21 December 1797. Growler was escorting a convoy in the Channel on a moonless night when the two privateers approached. They mistook her for a merchantman, ran close on either side and called on her to surrender. The officer of the watch, taken by surprise, fired a gun. Both privateers immediately came alongside and threw grapnels on to her. The British managed to cut the grapnels on one side the privateer on that side fell away, and fired a broadside before again coming alongside. The privateers sent boarding parties over the side. Lieutenant Hollingsworth was shot and died in the ensuing struggle. The British were then forced to strike.[3][Note 1][Note 2]
In 1799 a court martial honourably acquitted Growler's master of her loss.[6]
French Navy: The French Navy purchased Growler in November 1798 and retained her name.
Recapture: The British found Growler in a very decayed state on 1 August 1809 at Veere on the island of Walcheren at the beginning of the Walcheren Campaign.[2]
Espiègle was a privateer from Boulogne commissioned in December 1797 under Jean-Pierre-Antoine Duchenne, with 80 men and tn 3-pounder guns. She was under Jean-Augustin Huret from late 1799 with 34 men. Damaged in combat on 20 March 1800.[4]
↑ Rusé was a 70-ton privateer lugger from Boulogne, built to specifications from Jacques-Oudart "Bucaille" Fourmentin. First cruise from November 1796 to February 1797 under Bucaille, with 75 men and 10 guns (two 12-pounders and ten 3 or 4-pounders). Another cruise from Dunkirk from November to December 1797 under Bucaille with 8 guns. She made two further in 1798 and 1799 under Pierre Audibert, until HMSKite captured Rusé on 18 May 1799.[5]
↑ "Naval and Military Journal" . 2 December 1799, Hampshire/Portsmouth Telegraph(Leeds, England) issue: 8.
References
Demerliac, Alain (1999). La Marine de la Révolution: Nomenclature des Navires Français de 1792 à 1799 (in French). Éditions Ancre. ISBN9782906381247. OCLC492783890.
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN0-948864-30-3.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S. (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-84832-204-2.
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