HMS Carysfort (1766)
Encyclopedia
HMS Carysfort was a 28-gun Coventry-class
sixth-rate
frigate of the Royal Navy
. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary
and the Napoleonic Wars
in a career that spanned over forty years.
She had a number of notable commanders during this period, and saw action in several single-ship engagements against French and American opponents. She took several privateer
s during the American War of Independence, though one of her most notable actions was the recapture of , a Royal Navy frigate that a French squadron had captured nearly three weeks earlier and was being sailed to France by a French prize crew. Carysfort engaged and forced the surrender of her larger opponent and Castor was restored to the British, though not without a controversy over the issue of prize money. She spent the later French Revolutionary and early Napoleonic Wars on the overseas stations, in the East
and later the West Indies. Carysfort returned to Britain in 1806 where she was laid up in ordinary
. The Admiralty finally sold her in 1813.
Dockyard in February 1764 and laid down there in June that year. Her construction was overseen by master shipwright John Williams until June 1765, and thereafter by William Gray until her completion. She was named on 29 July 1765 and launched on 23 August 1766. She was completed by 11 August 1767, after the expenditure of £11,101 14s
11d to build, plus £1,614 13s 3d on fitting her out.
in June 1767, and sailed for the Mediterranean in September that year. Vandeput remained in command until 1770, when in February Captain William Hay replaced him. Hay continued in the Mediterranean until May, when he sailed to Jamaica
. On that trip she ran aground in the Straits of Florida
. Carysfort Reef there is named for her.
Hay and Carysfort briefly returned to Britain in 1771, before journeying back to Jamaica in April 1772. She was paid off in July 1773 and spent some time laid up.
Carysfort began to be fitted for foreign service at Chatham Dockyard
in September 1775, a process that had been completed by February 1776. She was then recommissioned in December 1775 under Captain Robert Fanshaw. Fanshaw sailed to North America in April 1776, but returned the following year where she was again fitted out, this time at Plymouth
.
In 1778, again in service in North America with Captain Fanshaw, she transported troops on a raiding expedition
led by Major General Charles Grey
. She paid off again in late 1778, but in late 1779 she was reactivated and began to be fitted for service in the English Channel
. She joined the Downs
squadron under her new captain, William Cumming, and on 13 June 1780 she captured the privateer
Espérance. Cumming was replaced in November 1780 by Captain William Peacock, and in December Carysfort returned to operate in North American waters. On 24 May 1782 she captured the American privateer General Galvez. Captain John Markham briefly took command in December 1782, and next month Carysfort was paid off again.
, and recommissioned in August 1793 under Captain Francis Laforey
.
on 29 May 1794 she came across , sailing under French colours. The Castor, originally under Captain Thomas Troubridge
, had been captured twenty days earlier by a French squadron under Joseph-Marie Nielly
during the Atlantic campaign of May 1794
. Castor was being sailed back to France by a French prize crew at the time she was discovered, and was towing a Dutch brig
. The French cast off the brig and fought Carysfort for an hour and a quarter, before surrendering. Carysforts casualties amounted to one dead and four wounded, while the French in Castor had 16 killed and nine wounded. One master's mate and eighteen seaman of the original crew were released after the recapture, but Troubridge and most of the British crew had been taken aboard Nielly's flagship, Sans Pareil
, and would have to wait for the defeat of the French fleets at the Glorious First of June
and the capture of Sans Pareil before they could be freed.
Carysfort towed Castor to a British port, but a dispute then arose over the matter of prize money. The naval commissioners decided that since Castor was being taken to a French port, she was not yet a French warship, and that Carysfort had merely recovered the British ship. This meant Laforey and his crew were entitled to some salvage rights, but not the more lucrative bounty of prize money. Laforey protested and the case went to Sir James Marriott, the judge of the High Court of Admiralty
. The captured French captain was called upon to give evidence, and reported that Nielly was empowered to 'condemn, arm, fit-out, and equip, all such prizes as he might think calculated for the service of the French republic.' Marriot determined that Castor fulfilled the criteria of such a ship, and therefore awarded her full value to Laforey and the men of Carysfort. Also, in 1847 the men of Carysfort were authorized the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp "Carysfort 29 May 1794"; however, none came forward to claim theirs.
in February 1796. Carysfort remained in the East Indies for the next few years, passing under the command of Captain Thomas Alexander in March 1796. On 19 August that year Alexander captured the 16-gun French corvette Alerte, a privateer requisitioned by the French government. She sailed from France for the East Indies with the squadron under Admiral Sercey
. There Sercy sent her to visit the Danish post at Trinquebar to gather information about the disposition of the British navy in the East Indies. On his way the captain encountered Carysfort in the dark, and mistaking her for a merchant vessel, attacked. Carysfort captured Alerte, and with her, papers describing Sercey's plans and route. this led on 9 September to an indecisive action between Sercey's squadron and and .
In December Captain John Turnor succeeded Murray. Turnor was replaced by Captain William Hills in 1798, and he by Captain Volant Vashon Ballard
in December 1798. Captain Adam Drumond commanded Carysfort from August 1800, until her return to Britain to be fitted out at Portsmouth
in 1801.
She came under the command of Captain George Mundy
in May 1802, then Captain Robert Fanshawe from September 1802, and later Captain John Woolcombe.
with a convoy of sixty-seven merchantmen, together with . The convoy immediately encountered a strong gale. At 3:30 in the morning of 2 April Apollo unexpectedly ran aground about nine miles south of Cape Mondego on the coast of Portugal. Soon after 25 or 26 of the vessels in the convoy, traveling closely behind due to the low visibility and bad weather, were also wrecked. Next day some more vessels were wrecked. In all, 29 vessels ran aground. Carysfort had shifted course on the evening of 1 April and so escaped grounding. She gathered the 38 surviving vessels and proceeded with the convoy.
Carysfort sailed to Jamaica in March 1804, and came under Captain Kenneth McKenzie in March 1806. In July 1806 Captain Philip Carteret of Scorpion
helped McKenzie save sixty-five deeply laden merchantmen from destruction at St. Kitts. Carteret sent a letter to the Governor at Nevis who warned McKenzie that a French squadron under Admiral Willaumez
had arrived at Martinique. Carysfort and the armed storeship Dolphin sailed leeward with their charges and so escaped the French, who had sailed from Fort Royal on 1 July. The French squadron succeeded in capturing three merchantmen at Montserrat and another three and a brig at Nevis; the fort on Brimstone Hill (St. Kitt's) and a battery on the beach protected nine others that had missed the convoy, though the French did attack them.
McKenzie took the Lutine in the West Indies on 24 March after a 30-hour chase, after Edward Berry
's came up and blocked her escape. Lutine was a new French navy brig with a crew of 100 men under the command of M. Croquet Dechauteurs. She was 33 days out of Lorient and on her way to Martinique, but had captured nothing on her way. She was armed with 18 guns but had thrown two overboard during the chase. Berry reported that "she is a remarkably fine Vessel, quite new,... , is well appointed in every Respect; sails uncommonly fast, and is, in my Opinion, well calculated for His Majesty's Service." The Navy concurred and took Lutine into service as .
in August. Five years later she was sold for £1,800 on 28 April 1813.
Coventry class frigate
These 28-gun sailing frigates of the sixth rate were designed in 1756 by Sir Thomas Slade "to the draught of the Tartar with such alterations withinboard as may be judged necessary"...
sixth-rate
Sixth-rate
Sixth rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for small warships mounting between 20 and 24 nine-pounder guns on a single deck, sometimes with guns on the upper works and sometimes without.-Rating:...
frigate of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
and the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
in a career that spanned over forty years.
She had a number of notable commanders during this period, and saw action in several single-ship engagements against French and American opponents. She took several privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
s during the American War of Independence, though one of her most notable actions was the recapture of , a Royal Navy frigate that a French squadron had captured nearly three weeks earlier and was being sailed to France by a French prize crew. Carysfort engaged and forced the surrender of her larger opponent and Castor was restored to the British, though not without a controversy over the issue of prize money. She spent the later French Revolutionary and early Napoleonic Wars on the overseas stations, in the East
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
and later the West Indies. Carysfort returned to Britain in 1806 where she was laid up in ordinary
Reserve fleet
A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed, and thus partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; an equivalent expression in unofficial modern U.S....
. The Admiralty finally sold her in 1813.
Construction and commissioning
Carysfort was ordered from SheernessSheerness
Sheerness is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the northwest corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 12,000 it is the largest town on the island....
Dockyard in February 1764 and laid down there in June that year. Her construction was overseen by master shipwright John Williams until June 1765, and thereafter by William Gray until her completion. She was named on 29 July 1765 and launched on 23 August 1766. She was completed by 11 August 1767, after the expenditure of £11,101 14s
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
11d to build, plus £1,614 13s 3d on fitting her out.
Early years and American War of Independence
Carysfort commissioned under her first commander, Captain George VandeputGeorge Vandeput
Admiral George Vandeput was an English naval officer, the illegitimate son of Sir George Vandeput, 2nd Baronet and an unknown mother.-Naval career:...
in June 1767, and sailed for the Mediterranean in September that year. Vandeput remained in command until 1770, when in February Captain William Hay replaced him. Hay continued in the Mediterranean until May, when he sailed to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. On that trip she ran aground in the Straits of Florida
Straits of Florida
The Straits of Florida, Florida Straits, or Florida Strait is a strait located south-southeast of the North American mainland, generally accepted to be between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, and between the Florida Keys and Cuba. The strait carries the Florida Current, the beginning of...
. Carysfort Reef there is named for her.
Hay and Carysfort briefly returned to Britain in 1771, before journeying back to Jamaica in April 1772. She was paid off in July 1773 and spent some time laid up.
Carysfort began to be fitted for foreign service at Chatham Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard
Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway and of which two-thirds is in Gillingham and one third in Chatham, Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional...
in September 1775, a process that had been completed by February 1776. She was then recommissioned in December 1775 under Captain Robert Fanshaw. Fanshaw sailed to North America in April 1776, but returned the following year where she was again fitted out, this time at Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
.
In 1778, again in service in North America with Captain Fanshaw, she transported troops on a raiding expedition
Grey's raid
In September 1778, British Major General Charles Grey raided the Massachusetts communities of New Bedford and Martha's Vineyard. Troops under his command destroyed storehouses, shipping, and supplies in New Bedford, where they met with light resistance from the local militia...
led by Major General Charles Grey
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, KB PC was one of the most important British generals of the 18th century. He was the fourth son of Sir Henry Grey, 1st Baronet, of Howick in Northumberland. He served in the Seven Years' War, American War of Independence and French Revolutionary War...
. She paid off again in late 1778, but in late 1779 she was reactivated and began to be fitted for service in the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
. She joined the Downs
The Downs
The Downs are a roadstead or area of sea in the southern North Sea near the English Channel off the east Kent coast, between the North and the South Foreland in southern England. In 1639 the Battle of the Downs took place here, when the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet which had sought refuge...
squadron under her new captain, William Cumming, and on 13 June 1780 she captured the privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
Espérance. Cumming was replaced in November 1780 by Captain William Peacock, and in December Carysfort returned to operate in North American waters. On 24 May 1782 she captured the American privateer General Galvez. Captain John Markham briefly took command in December 1782, and next month Carysfort was paid off again.
Interwar period and French Revolutionary Wars
Carysfort underwent a great repair in mid-1785, and returned to service in January 1787, having commissioned the previous month under Captain Matthew Smith. She served in the Mediterranean for three years, paying off in 1790. After a further period spent laid up, Carysfort was prepared for active service again after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary WarsFrench Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
, and recommissioned in August 1793 under Captain Francis Laforey
Francis Laforey
Admiral Sir Francis Laforey, 2nd Baronet, KCB was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, whose distinguished service record included numerous frigate commands in Home waters and in the West Indies...
.
Carysfort and Castor
While off Land's EndLand's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....
on 29 May 1794 she came across , sailing under French colours. The Castor, originally under Captain Thomas Troubridge
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet
Sir Thomas Troubridge, 1st Baronet was a British naval commander and politician.Troubridge was educated at St Paul's School, London. He entered the Royal Navy in 1773 and, together with Nelson, served in the East Indies in the frigate Seahorse. In 1785 he returned to England in the Sultan as...
, had been captured twenty days earlier by a French squadron under Joseph-Marie Nielly
Joseph-Marie Nielly
Joseph-Marie Nielly was a French naval officer and admiral.Nielly began his career aged seven aboard the Formidable, and was wounded at the Battle of Quiberon Bay, on 20 November 1759. He sailed in the Caribbean until 1769, when he joined the merchant navy.In 1774, aged 23, he received his first...
during the Atlantic campaign of May 1794
Atlantic campaign of May 1794
The Atlantic campaign of May 1794 was a series of operations conducted by the British Royal Navy's Channel Fleet against the French Navy's Atlantic Fleet, with the aim of preventing the passage of a strategically important French grain convoy travelling from the United States to France...
. Castor was being sailed back to France by a French prize crew at the time she was discovered, and was towing a Dutch brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
. The French cast off the brig and fought Carysfort for an hour and a quarter, before surrendering. Carysforts casualties amounted to one dead and four wounded, while the French in Castor had 16 killed and nine wounded. One master's mate and eighteen seaman of the original crew were released after the recapture, but Troubridge and most of the British crew had been taken aboard Nielly's flagship, Sans Pareil
HMS Sans Pareil (1794)
HMS Sans Pareil was an 80-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was formerly the French ship Sans Pareil, but was captured in 1794 and spent the rest of her career in service with the British.-French service:...
, and would have to wait for the defeat of the French fleets at the Glorious First of June
Glorious First of June
The Glorious First of June [Note A] of 1794 was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars...
and the capture of Sans Pareil before they could be freed.
Carysfort towed Castor to a British port, but a dispute then arose over the matter of prize money. The naval commissioners decided that since Castor was being taken to a French port, she was not yet a French warship, and that Carysfort had merely recovered the British ship. This meant Laforey and his crew were entitled to some salvage rights, but not the more lucrative bounty of prize money. Laforey protested and the case went to Sir James Marriott, the judge of the High Court of Admiralty
Admiralty court
Admiralty courts, also known as maritime courts, are courts exercising jurisdiction over all maritime contracts, torts, injuries and offences.- Admiralty Courts in England and Wales :...
. The captured French captain was called upon to give evidence, and reported that Nielly was empowered to 'condemn, arm, fit-out, and equip, all such prizes as he might think calculated for the service of the French republic.' Marriot determined that Castor fulfilled the criteria of such a ship, and therefore awarded her full value to Laforey and the men of Carysfort. Also, in 1847 the men of Carysfort were authorized the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp "Carysfort 29 May 1794"; however, none came forward to claim theirs.
French Revolutionary Wars
Captain John Murray took command of Carysfort in 1795, and left Britain for the East IndiesEast Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
in February 1796. Carysfort remained in the East Indies for the next few years, passing under the command of Captain Thomas Alexander in March 1796. On 19 August that year Alexander captured the 16-gun French corvette Alerte, a privateer requisitioned by the French government. She sailed from France for the East Indies with the squadron under Admiral Sercey
Pierre César Charles de Sercey
Pierre César Charles de Sercey was a French admiral, most notable for commanding French naval forces in the Indian Ocean from 1796 to 1800. His name is engraved on the Arc de triomphe.-Early life:...
. There Sercy sent her to visit the Danish post at Trinquebar to gather information about the disposition of the British navy in the East Indies. On his way the captain encountered Carysfort in the dark, and mistaking her for a merchant vessel, attacked. Carysfort captured Alerte, and with her, papers describing Sercey's plans and route. this led on 9 September to an indecisive action between Sercey's squadron and and .
In December Captain John Turnor succeeded Murray. Turnor was replaced by Captain William Hills in 1798, and he by Captain Volant Vashon Ballard
Volant Vashon Ballard
Volant Vashon Ballard CB was a Rear-Admiral of the Royal Navy. He served as a midshipman with George Vancouver on his voyage to the north-west coast of America.-Early career:...
in December 1798. Captain Adam Drumond commanded Carysfort from August 1800, until her return to Britain to be fitted out at Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
in 1801.
She came under the command of Captain George Mundy
George Mundy
Admiral Sir George Mundy, KCB was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the early nineteenth century, serving principally in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
in May 1802, then Captain Robert Fanshawe from September 1802, and later Captain John Woolcombe.
Napoleonic Wars
On 26 March 1804, she sailed from CorkCork Harbour
Cork Harbour is a natural harbour and river estuary at the mouth of the River Lee in County Cork, Ireland. It is one of several which lay claim to the title of "second largest natural harbour in the world by navigational area" . Other contenders include Halifax Harbour in Canada, and Poole Harbour...
with a convoy of sixty-seven merchantmen, together with . The convoy immediately encountered a strong gale. At 3:30 in the morning of 2 April Apollo unexpectedly ran aground about nine miles south of Cape Mondego on the coast of Portugal. Soon after 25 or 26 of the vessels in the convoy, traveling closely behind due to the low visibility and bad weather, were also wrecked. Next day some more vessels were wrecked. In all, 29 vessels ran aground. Carysfort had shifted course on the evening of 1 April and so escaped grounding. She gathered the 38 surviving vessels and proceeded with the convoy.
Carysfort sailed to Jamaica in March 1804, and came under Captain Kenneth McKenzie in March 1806. In July 1806 Captain Philip Carteret of Scorpion
HMS Scorpion (1803)
HMS Scorpion was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1803. She was the first of the class to be built since the launching of Cruizer in 1797...
helped McKenzie save sixty-five deeply laden merchantmen from destruction at St. Kitts. Carteret sent a letter to the Governor at Nevis who warned McKenzie that a French squadron under Admiral Willaumez
Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez
Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez was a French sailor and admiral of the First French Empire....
had arrived at Martinique. Carysfort and the armed storeship Dolphin sailed leeward with their charges and so escaped the French, who had sailed from Fort Royal on 1 July. The French squadron succeeded in capturing three merchantmen at Montserrat and another three and a brig at Nevis; the fort on Brimstone Hill (St. Kitt's) and a battery on the beach protected nine others that had missed the convoy, though the French did attack them.
McKenzie took the Lutine in the West Indies on 24 March after a 30-hour chase, after Edward Berry
Edward Berry
Rear Admiral Sir Edward Berry, 1st Baronet, KCB was an officer in Britain's Royal Navy primarily known for his role as flag captain of Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson's ship HMS Vanguard at the Battle of the Nile, prior to his knighthood in 1798...
's came up and blocked her escape. Lutine was a new French navy brig with a crew of 100 men under the command of M. Croquet Dechauteurs. She was 33 days out of Lorient and on her way to Martinique, but had captured nothing on her way. She was armed with 18 guns but had thrown two overboard during the chase. Berry reported that "she is a remarkably fine Vessel, quite new,... , is well appointed in every Respect; sails uncommonly fast, and is, in my Opinion, well calculated for His Majesty's Service." The Navy concurred and took Lutine into service as .
Fate
Carysfort returned to Britain later in 1806 and was laid up at DeptfordDeptford
Deptford is a district of south London, England, located on the south bank of the River Thames. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th century to the late 19th was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards.Deptford and the docks are...
in August. Five years later she was sold for £1,800 on 28 April 1813.