HMS Hippomenes (1803)
Encyclopedia
HMS Hippomenes was a former Dutch corvette built in Vlissingen in 1797 for the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
. The British took her in 1803 and she served with 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...
until sold in 1813. With the Royal Navy she participated in two notable single-ship actions in the West Indies.
Dutch service
Hippomenes was a sister ship to Atalanta, but brig-rigged and built in 1796. captured Atalanta in 1804 but the British did not take her into service. The two sister ships were named for AtalantaAtalanta
Atalanta is a character in Greek mythology.-Legend:Atalanta was the daughter of Iasus , a Boeotian or an Arcadian princess . She is often described as a goddess. Apollodorus is the only one who gives an account of Atalanta’s birth and upbringing...
and Hippomenes
Hippomenes
In Greek mythology, Hippomenes , also known as Melanion, was the husband of Atalanta.- Overview :When men who were struck by Atalanta's beauty watched her run through the forest, she became angry and told them "I will race anyone who wants to marry me! Whoever is so swift that he can outrun me will...
, two lovers from Greek mythology.
Capture
In the summer of 1803 the Dutch Hippomenes was acting as a guard ship at Fort StabroekGeorgetown, Guyana
Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at . The city serves...
, Demerara
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
. She was responsible for the Governor's maritime affairs and served as harbour master for visiting ships.
When Commodore
Commodore (Royal Navy)
Commodore is a rank of the Royal Navy above Captain and below Rear Admiral. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-6. The rank is equivalent to Brigadier in the British Army and Royal Marines and to Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force.-Insignia:...
Sir Samuel Hood arrived to take command in the Leeward Islands
Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...
, he raised his pennant in the 74-gun third rate . This ship of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
seized Hippomenes on 20 September 1803 at the taking of Demerara
Demerara
Demerara was a region in South America in what is now Guyana that was colonised by the Dutch in 1611. The British invaded and captured the area in 1796...
. Hippomenes was the only vessel belonging to the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
and was included in the terms of capitulation. Initial reports described her as a corvette of 18 guns, perhaps because she was pierced for 18, though only 14 were mounted.
The British then took her to Antigua
Antigua
Antigua , also known as Waladli, is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua means "ancient" in Spanish and was named by Christopher Columbus after an icon in Seville Cathedral, Santa Maria de la...
where she was added as the 18-gun sloop-of-war
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
HMS Hippomenes. This entailed the replacement of her 14 Dutch guns, which were incompatible with British requirements—Dutch 8-pounders, in particular, could not take Royal Navy ammunition—with 18 British guns. Her first British commander was Lieutenant John Woolcombe.
On 26 January 1804, Hippomenes recaptured the English Ship Mercury, which was carrying a cargo of lumber.
British service
Conway Shipley transferred from and took command of Hippomenes on 22 March 1804. On 25 March 1804, he and the 18-gun sloopSloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
retook the French prize Rigby. More importantly for subsequent developments, they also recaptured the Reliance, out of London. From her he obtained information about the whereabouts of the French privateer Egyptienne
Egyptienne (ship)
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Egyptienne or Egypt, which commemorated Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign, was a popular name for French vessels, including naval vessels and privateers...
(the former frigate Railleuse).
Two days later, after a 54-hour chase, and a running fight of over 3 hours, Hippomenes captured Egyptienne. The French vessel struck her colours as soon as Hippomenes pulled alongside, with the result that the British suffered only one man wounded. A few days earlier, on 23 March, Egyptienne had battled Osprey, losing eight men killed and 19 men wounded before she could escape. Apparently this demoralized her captain so that when faced with yet another British warship he surrendered without putting up strong resistance. (Osprey had lost one man killed and 16 wounded.) Egyptienne had 36 guns (12 and 9-pounders) and a crew of 240 men when captured; when she battled Osprey her crew had been about 250 men. The British took Egyptienne into service as . Antigua served as a prison ship until she was scrapped in 1816.
Hippomenes formed part of Commodore Hood's squadron at the capture of Surinam River
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
in 1804. The squadron consisted of Hood's flagship Centaur, , , , Hippomenes, Drake
Earl of Mornington (East Indiaman)
Earl of Mornington was an East India Company packet ship built in 1799 by Perry, Wells & Green of Blackwall. She performed one voyage for the East India Company, sailing from England to India and returning...
, the 10-gun schooner , and transports carrying 2000 troops under Brigadier-General Sir Charles Green. On 24 April, Hippomenes escorted a convoy carrying a division of the army under Brigadier-General Frederick Maitland
Frederick Maitland
General Frederick Maitland was the youngest son of the hon. Sir Alexander Maitland Baronet and Penelope, daughter of Martin Madan and Judith Madan the poet...
to land at Warappa creek to collect enough boats from the plantations to transport troops to the rear of Fort New Amsterdam.
On 30 April, Kenneth Mackenzie (or M'Kenzie) of the 16-gun, ex-French privateer brig , who had left his ship 50 leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
to leeward and brought up her boats, assisted Shipley in superintending the landing of Maitland's troops at Warappa. The Dutch governor initially rejected the surrender terms but surrendered on 5 May after the British captured the battery of Friderici. Hood made Shipley post-captain
Post-Captain
Post-captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy.The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from:...
into Centaur. (One day earlier the Admiralty had promoted him into the ex-French 28-gun frigate ; he later assumed command of her at Jamaica.)
On 1 May Hippomenes and captured the sloop Lizard and her cargo.
In June, Mackenzie took over command of Hippomenes, whose crew, he complained, consisted mainly of discontented foreigners. When the British had commissioned her, Shipley had to get men for her crew by drawing on other vessels, which gave the commanders of those vessels an opportunity to rid themselves of "skulkers, raw hands, incorrigible rogues and foreign renegades."
The poor quality of the crew came to the fore on 21 June when Hippomene was cruising off Antigua. Taking advantage of Hippomenes Dutch design, Mackenzie had disguised her as a Guinea trader. A Guadeloupe privateer, the Buonaparte, of 18 long 8-pounders and a crew of 146 men, sighted Hippomenes and sailed to take her. The two vessels exchanged fire until Buonaparte ran into Hippomenes. Mackenzie had his crew lash the privateer's bowsprit to the mainmast and jumped on board the privateer, followed by his officers and a few men, some 18 in all. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew remained behind. In the fight on the privateer, the British lost five dead and eight wounded; only nine of the original 18 managed to escape back to Hippomenes (two officers and two men remained on board Buonaparte as prisoners). The boarding party barely got back in time before the lashings gave way and the vessels parted, at which time the privateer sailed away. On Hippomenes his wounds rendered Mackenzie himself senseless for a while. In the engagement prior to the boarding, the Buonaparte had lost five dead and 15 wounded.
During August 1804, Hippomenes, retook the English ship Young Nicholas, which was laden with mahogany. In 1805 Hippomenes was under the command of Commander William Autridge. By 11 November Commander Edward Woolcombe, who had been promoted out of Centaur, was listed as commanding Hippomenes at the capture of the brig Hiram. Hipomenes was part of a flotilla that received credit.
On 24 January 1807, a court martial acquitted Woolcombe of "wasteful expenditure of His Majestys stores".
On 27 March 1808 the boats of Hippomenes joined those of , , and in an attempt to cut out the 16-gun French brig Griffon at Marin, Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
. They succeeded in capturing a battery but were driven back empty handed, having suffered heavy casualties from the brig's fire.
In June 1808 Commander K.H. Waede took command of Hippomenes at Barbados, somewhat to his dismay, as he had been appointed to command , a new vessel, the news arriving too late. Hippomenes then escorted a convoy to England.
Fate
On 25 September 1808 Hippomenes arrived in PortsmouthPortsmouth
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...
and was laid up. She was sold on 28 April 1813 for £600.