HMS Wolverine (1805)
Encyclopedia
HMS Wolverine (or Wolverene) was a 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...
18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop
Cruizer class brig-sloop
The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging...
, launched in 1805 at Topsham, near Exeter
Topsham, Devon
Topsham is a suburb of Exeter in the county of Devon, England, on the east side of the River Exe, immediately north of its confluence with the River Clyst and the former's estuary, between Exeter and Exmouth. Although village-sized, with a current population of around 5,023, it was designated a...
. Early in her career she was involved in two fratricidal
Fratricide
Fratricide is the act of a person killing his or her brother....
incidents, one involving a British frigate and then a newsworthy case in which she helped capture a British slave ship
Slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially converted for the purpose of transporting slaves, especially newly purchased African slaves to Americas....
. She later captured several privateers and took part in the invasion
Invasion of Martinique (1809)
The invasion of Martinique of 1809 was a successful British amphibious operation against the French West Indian island of Martinique that took place between 30 January and 24 February 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars...
of Martinique. Wolverine was decommissioned in August or September 1815 and was sold on 15 February 1816.
Service
Wolverine entered service in 1805 under Commander John Smith (or Smyth). In November Wolverine and the frigate encountered each other off the coast of Madeira. After a series of ambiguous and misinterpreted moves by the other, the two captains mistook each other for enemies and opened fire. Both vessels survived and the two captains proceeded to exchange mutually recriminatory letters.Commander Francis Augustus Collier replaced Smith on 15 January 1806. Then on 12 March Wolverine captured the French 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...
schooner Tremeuse (or Tremieuse), armed with two 9-pounder carronades and one long 6-pounder; she had a crew of 53 men and was also from Guadeloupe. She had been out 12 days without capturing anything. Wolverine deployed to the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
in July 1806.
On 16 October Wolverine captured the packet
Packet ship
A "packet ship" was originally a vessel employed to carry post office mail packets to and from British embassies, colonies and outposts. In sea transport, a packet service is a regular, scheduled service, carrying freight and passengers...
Guadeloupe, of one gun and 42 men. On 25 October she recaptured the American vessel, the Franklin, which was carrying masts to Barbados and had been a prize to Guadeloupe.
Next, on 9 November, Dart, with Wolverine in company, captured the 8-gun Jeune Gabrielle. She had thrown half her guns overboard during the chase. She was under the command of M. Auguste Boufford and had a crew of 75. She was out of Guadeloupe and had not made any captures. The next day Wolverine captured the Marianne, of one gun and 46 men.
On 30 November 1806 there occurred a second unfortunate incident when Wolverine fired on a British merchant vessel engaged in lawful trade. At 10pm, Dart, under Commander Joseph Spear, and Wolverine came upon a ship that they suspected was a French privateer and that kept up a running fight until morning, only surrendering after her captain and several of her crew had been wounded, of whom six later died. The vessel turned out to be the British 24-gun slaverWhile distasteful, the slave trade was not, in 1806, illegal. The international slave trade was abolished by degrees, beginning in 1807. Mary, out of Liverpool, under Captain Hugh Crow. He had thought that the two vessels chasing him in the dark were French privateers out of Cayenne
Cayenne
Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...
and was determined not to surrender his vessel without a fight. Commander Spear gave him a letter of praise for his determined resistance and the fight became something of a sensation; on his return home Crow received honour, glory and a substantial reward for his gallantry. Also, "many of the wretched negroes were killed or injured."Crow was a slaver who had earlier fought in two other engagements. The French vessel Robuste, of twenty-four 12-pounders and 150 men, had captured him in 1794. Then on 21 February 1800, as captain of Will, of eighteen 6-pounders and 50 men, he fought off a French privateer with the loss of three crewmen and two slaves killed and 10 wounded. He recounts his career and the fights in detail in his autobiography (Crow 1970).
On 27 January 1807 Wolverine was in sight when Jason
HMS Jason (1804)
HMS Jason was a 32-gun fifth rate Thames-class frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1804 at Woolwich, named for Jason of Greek Mythology.-Service:...
captured the Favorite. Four days later, Wolverine chased and captured the French privateer Petite Confiance, which had been cruising from Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...
for the previous month. During the chase she had thrown two of her three guns overboard. She had a crew of 50 and had been out of Guadeloupe for a month without taking any prizes.
On 22 April 1808, the sloop Goree
HMS Favourite (1794)
HMS Favourite was a 16-gun Cormorant-class sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Rotherhithe. The French captured her in 1806 and renamed her Favorite. However, the British recaptured her in 1807 and renamed her HMS Goree...
, under Commander Joseph Spear, engaged the French brigs Palinure
French brig Palinure (1804)
Palinure was a Palinure-class 16-gun brig of the French Navy, built by Caudan at Lorient and launched in 1804. In French service she captured before captured her in turn. Taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Snap, she participated in two campaigns that qualified for the Naval General Service Medal...
and Pilade in an inconclusive action. The schooner Superieur came to Gorees assistance, followed a little while later by the frigate Circe
HMS Circe (1804)
HMS Circe was a Royal Navy 32-gun fifth-rate Thames-class frigate, built by Master Shipwright Joseph Tucker at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched in 1804. She served in the Caribbean during the Napoleonic Wars, and participated in an action and a campaign for which in 1847 in the Admiralty authorized...
and Wolverine, which arrived too late to engage. On 31 October Circe captured Palinure.
Command briefly passed to Commander John Simpson in 1809, who commanded Wolverine during the invasion of Martinique in January and February 1809. On 15 January 1809 Wolverine, in company with Pompee, Captain
HMS Captain (1787)
HMS Captain was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 November 1787 at Limehouse. She served during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before being placed in harbour service in 1799...
and Circe
HMS Circe (1804)
HMS Circe was a Royal Navy 32-gun fifth-rate Thames-class frigate, built by Master Shipwright Joseph Tucker at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched in 1804. She served in the Caribbean during the Napoleonic Wars, and participated in an action and a campaign for which in 1847 in the Admiralty authorized...
, captured the French brig Josephine. That same day Wolverine captured the Napoleon.
Simpson transferred to Goree and command of Wolverine passed to Commander Joseph Spear. On the morning of 12 April Spear arrived at the Admiralty office with Rear-Admiral Alexander Cochrane
Alexander Cochrane
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB RN was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars.-Naval career:...
's dispatches announcing the surrender of Martinique. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Martinique" to all still surviving participants in the campaign.
Commander Charles J. Kerr took command on 11 December 1809. On 27 September 1810 Wolverine had been in pursuit of a French brig when Rhin joined the chase and after two and a half hours captured the quarry off the Lizard
Lizard Point, Cornwall
Lizard Point in Cornwall is at the southern tip of the Lizard Peninsula. It is situated half-a-mile south of Lizard village in the civil parish of Landewednack and approximately 11 miles southeast of Helston....
. The French vessel was the privateer San Joseph, of Saint Malo, under the command of a Joseph Wittevronghel, a Dane. San Joseph was one year old, about 100 tons burthen (bm
Builder's Old Measurement
Builder's Old Measurement is the method of calculating the size or cargo capacity of a ship used in England from approximately 1720 to 1849. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on length and maximum beam...
), and armed with 14 guns though she was pierced for 16. She had only been out one day when the British captured her and had taken nothing. Also, Little Belt
HMS Little Belt (1807)
Lillebælt was a Danish 22-gun warship launched in 1801. The Danes surrendered her to the Royal Navy in 1807 and she became the 20-gun post ship HMS Little Belt. The American USS President fired on her during peacetime, believing her to be , which had recently abducted a sailor from USS Spitfire,...
had been in company with Wolverine.
A court martial tried a seaman from Wolverine on 7 October 1811. The charge was that the seaman had absented himself without leave and had taken one of the ship's boats to do so. He received a sentence of 300 lashes.
On 17 November, Wolverine recaptured the sloop Minerva.
Wolverine was in sight on 15 February 1812 when the hired armed lugger Sandwich recaptured the North Star.
On 7 November 1813, she captured the 6-gun Lugger
Lugger
A lugger is a class of boats, widely used as traditional fishing boats, particularly off the coasts of France, Scotland and England. It is a small sailing vessel with lugsails set on two or more masts and perhaps lug topsails.-Defining the rig:...
no. 961, off Barfleur
Barfleur
Barfleur is a commune in the Manche department in the Basse-Normandie region in north-western France.-Middle Ages:In the Middle Ages Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation for England....
. No. 961 belonged to the Cherbourg flotilla. She was armed with six guns, had a crew of 32 men and was under the command of Lieutenant Berard. On 13 December Wolverine intercepted King of Rome, an American letter of marque
Letter of marque
In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...
, laden with colonial produce.
On 26 April 1814, Wolverine sailed with a convoy for Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec and New Brunswick. On 4 September Kerr became acting captain of Tonnant, the flagship of Sir Alexander Cochrane
Alexander Cochrane
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB RN was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars.-Naval career:...
, on the coast of North America. On 5 October George Guy Burton was promoted to Commander and removed from Tonnant to Wolverine, which then spent some time on the Mediterranean station.
Fate
Wolverine was paid off and put in ordinaryReserve 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....
at Deptford in August or September 1815. The Admiralty listed her for sale on 29 January 1816 and then sold her on 15 February for £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
810.