HMS Proserpine (1777)

Last updated

HMS Proserpine (1777) wrecked.jpg
The Proserpine Frigate Lost March 1799 off Neuwerk Island in the Elbe
John Thomas Serres
History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Proserpine
Ordered14 May 1777
BuilderJohn Barnard, Harwich
Laid downJune 1776
Launched7 July 1777
Completed23 September 1777 (at Sheerness Dockyard)
Commissioned25 July 1777
FateWrecked 1 February 1799
General characteristics
Class and type28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate
Tons burthen595 3794 (bm)
Length
  • 120 ft 6 in (36.73 m) (overall)
  • 99 ft 0 in (30.18 m) (keel)
Beam33 ft 7+12 in (10.2 m)
Depth of hold11 ft 0 in (3.35 m)
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Complement200 officers and men
Armament
  • Upper deck: 24 × 9-pounder guns
  • QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns + 4 × 18-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 × 18-pounder carronades
  • Also:12 × swivel guns

HMS Proserpine was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1777 was wrecked in February 1799.

Contents

Career

Proserpine was first commissioned in July 1777 under the command of Captain Evelyn Sutton.

On 20 October 1779, Proserpine captured the French 26-gun frigate Alcmène, off Martinique. Alcmène had been severely damaged by a storm, and had thrown most of her guns overboard to stay afloat. [1]

On 29 November 1779 Proserpine recaptured Sphinx (or Sphynx). [2] She had been in French hands for three to four months. [3]

On 26 June 1793 the Jamaica fleet returning to England sailed from Bluefields, Jamaica, under escort by Proserpine, the sloops Fly and Serpent, and the troop transport Europa. The only incident appears to have occurred in early July. On 4 July a gale forced the merchant ship Amity Hall away from the fleet, but she sighted it again on 5 July. As Amity Hall was rejoining the fleet on 6 July she collided with the merchant ship Albion. Albion's crew abandoned her and Amity Hall took them on board. The accident gave rise to a tort court case that Amity Hall's owners lost to Albion's owners on the grounds that Amity Hall's master had not followed the sailing instructions that Captain Alms of Proserpine had issued on setting out. [4]

On 16 March 1794 Penelope captured the French brick-aviso, Goéland, off Jérémie. [5] Proserpine shared in the prize money, suggesting that she was in company with, or in sight of, Penelope. The Royal Navy briefly took Goéland into service as HMS Goelan.

On 26 March 1798 Proserpine, Captain James Wallis, captured the Danish merchant ship Neptunus. [6]

Proserpine was part of Admiral Duncan's squadron and so shared in the proceeds of the capture of Hoop (6 June 1798), Neptune (12 June), Stadt Embden (14 June), Rose and Endraft (14 June), Hoop (15 June), and Vrow Dorothea (16 June). [7]

Fate

Proserpine was wrecked off the mouth of the Elbe on 1 February 1799. She was under the command of Captain James Wallis, and was taking the Honourable Thomas Grenville and his party to Cuxhaven, from where they were to proceed on a diplomatic mission to meet Frederick William III of Prussia in Berlin during the War of the Second Coalition. By 4pm on 31 January the weather had worsened to such a degree that Proserpine had to anchor, four miles short of Cuxhaven. The weather worsened, and by next morning the channels were blocked by ice. Wallis got under-weigh to attempt to withdraw and reach a Danish port, but around 9:30pm she grounded. Attempts to lighten her failed. The next morning it became clear that she was aground on the Scharhörn Sand near Newark Island in the Elbe, and completely blocked in by ice, which was increasing.

At 1:30, all 187 persons on Proserpine left her and started the six-mile walk to shore, in freezing weather and falling snow. Seven seamen, a boy, four Royal Marines, and one woman and her child died; the rest made it safely to Neuwerk where they took shelter in the tower there. The diplomatic party reached Cuxhaven a few days later.

The ship's master, Mr. Anthony, took five men and returned to Proserpine on 10 February. They found her crushed. While they were still on board, the ship (still encased in ice), was swept out to sea, before she grounded again on Baltrum Island. Anthony and his companions survived this second shipwreck too. [8] [9]

Citations

  1. Roche (2005), p. 31.
  2. "No. 12678". The London Gazette . 30 August 1785. p. 410.
  3. Demerliac (1996), p. 69, #432.
  4. Fletcher (1805), pp. 102–4.
  5. "No. 15092". The London Gazette . 22 December 1798. p. 1240.
  6. "No. 15294". The London Gazette . 16 September 1800. p. 1074.
  7. "No. 15402". The London Gazette . 29 August 1801. p. 1062.
  8. Hepper (1994), p.90.
  9. Proserpine Frigate – Official Account of the Loss of that Ship; a letter addressed by Captain Wallis to Vice Admiral Dickson; Feb 18, 1799; "The Naval Chronicle"; January–June 1799; (Bunney & Gold, London); pp. 332–335.

Related Research Articles

HMS Thunderer was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in 1783. She carried 74-guns, being classified as a third rate. During her service she took part in several prominent naval battles of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; including the Glorious First of June, the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar.

HMS <i>Naiad</i> (1797) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Naiad was a Royal Navy fifth-rate frigate that served in the Napoleonic Wars. She was built by Hall and Co. at Limehouse on the Thames, launched in 1797, and commissioned in 1798. She served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and her last actions occurred in 1824–5. She was paid off in 1826. She then served for many years in Latin America as a coal depot, first for the Royal Navy and then for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. She was broken up in 1898, 101 years after her launching.

HMS <i>Babet</i> (1794)

HMS Babet was a 20-gun sixth-rate post ship of the British Royal Navy. She had previously been a corvette of the French Navy under the name Babet, until her capture in 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars. She served with the British, capturing several privateers and other vessels, and was at the Battle of Groix. She disappeared in the Caribbean in 1800, presumably having foundered.

HMS <i>Amelia</i> (1796) 18th-century frigate of the British Royal Navy

Proserpine was a 38-gun Hébé-class frigate of the French Navy launched in 1785 that HMS Dryad captured on 13 June 1796. The Admiralty commissioned Proserpine into the Royal Navy as the fifth rate, HMS Amelia. She spent 20 years in the Royal Navy, participating in numerous actions in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, capturing a number of prizes, and serving on anti-smuggling and anti-slavery patrols. Her most notable action was her intense and bloody, but inconclusive, fight in 1813 with the French frigate Aréthuse. Amelia was broken up in December 1816.

HMS <i>Ethalion</i> (1797) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Ethalion was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built by Joseph Graham of Harwich and launched on 14 March 1797. In her brief career before she was wrecked in 1799 on the French coast, she participated in a major battle and in the capture of two privateers and a rich prize.

HMS <i>Martin</i> (1790) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Martin was a 16-gun sloop of the Royal Navy. She served at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797 and captured two privateers before she disappeared in 1800.

HMS <i>Ambuscade</i> (1773) 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, built in the Grove Street shipyard of Adams & Barnard at Depford in 1773. The French captured her in 1798 but the British recaptured her in 1803. She was broken up in 1810.

HMS <i>Trompeuse</i> (1799) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Trompeuse was the French privateer Mercure, captured in 1799. She foundered in the English Channel in 1800.

French frigate <i>Sensible</i> (1787)

Sensible was a 32-gun Magicienne-class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1798 off Malta and took into service as HMS Sensible. She was lost in a grounding off Ceylon in 1802.

HMS Alcmene was a 32-gun Alcmene-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy. This frigate served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars under the command of several notable officers. Alcmene was active in several theatres of the war, spending most of her time cruising in search of enemy vessels or privateers, and escorting convoys. She fought at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and served in the blockade of the French coasts during the later Napoleonic Wars until she was wrecked on the French coast in 1809.

The French brig Alerte was launched in April 1787. The Royal Navy captured her at Toulon in August 1793, and renamed her HMS Vigilante. The British set her on fire when they evacuated Toulon in December of that year. After the French rebuilt her as Alerte, she served at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. The British recaptured her in June 1799 and took her into service as HMS Minorca. Minorca was sold in 1802.

HMS <i>Jupiter</i> (1778) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Jupiter was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth-rate ship of the 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. She was also one of the fastest ships in the Royal Navy as shown by her attempt to capture the cutter Eclipse under Nathaniel Fanning.

French frigate <i>Aigle</i> (1782) Ship

The French frigate Aigle was launched in 1780 as a privateer. The French Navy purchased her in 1782, but the British captured her that same year and took her into the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Aigle. During the French Revolutionary Wars she served primarily in the Mediterranean, where she was wrecked in 1798.

Goéland was the name ship of a two-vessel class of "brick-avisos", built to a design by Raymond-Antoine Haran and launched in 1787. She served the French Navy for several years carrying dispatches until in 1793 HMS Penelope and HMS Proserpine captured her off Jérémie. The Royal Navy took her into service briefly as Goelan and sold her in 1794. As the merchant brig Brothers she appears to have sailed as a whaling ship in the British southern whale fishery until 1808 or so, and then traded between London and the Brazils. She is no longer listed after 1815.

HMS <i>Barbuda</i> (1780) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.

His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Sandwich served the Royal Navy from 23 May 1798 until the French frigate Créole captured her on 14 June 1799. She then served in the French Navy until the Royal Navy recaptured her on 15 October 1803. The Navy purchased her in 1804 and she served for some months in 1805 as HMS Sandwich before she was sold in Jamaica. During this period she captured three small French privateers in two days.

HMS Busy was launched in 1797 as the only member of her class of brig-sloops. She captured one French privateer and numerous small merchantmen, but spent most of her career escorting convoys to and from the West Indies. She foundered in 1806 while serving on the Halifax, Nova Scotia, station.

Amity Hall was a ship launched on the River Thames in 1789. She was a West Indiaman of little note until 1793 when she struck the slave ship Albion, leading Albion's crew to abandon her. This gave rise to an important court case in which the judge ruled that Amity Hall's owners were responsible for her captain's actions and so liable for the loss of Albion. Amity Hall herself was wrecked the next year.

Courageaux was commissioned in Bordeaux in 1798. She made two cruises as a privateer before HMS Alcmene captured her in 1799. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Lutine. She had a brief operational life in the Royal Navy, serving primarily as a prison ship. At the end of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1802 the Royal Navy sold her in the Mediterranean.

HMS Requin was the French Navy cutter Requin, launched at Boulogne in 1794. HMS Thalia captured Requin in 1795. Requin captured one small French privateer and participated in the capture of Suriname before wrecking in 1801.

References