HMS Cruelle (1800)
History | |
---|---|
France | |
Name: | Cruelle |
Builder: | probably Lemarchand, Saint-Malo |
Laid down: | ca. March 1793 |
Launched: | July 1793 |
Captured: | 1 June 1800 |
UK | |
Name: | HMS Cruelle |
Acquired: | 1 June 1800 by capture |
Honours and awards: | Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt".[1] |
Fate: | Sold 1801 |
General characteristics [2][3] | |
Class and type: | Vesuve-class |
Type: | Schooner |
Displacement: | 140 tons (French) |
Length: |
|
Beam: | 6.50 metres (21.3 ft) |
Propulsion: | Sails |
Sail plan: | Schooner |
Complement: | 53 (French service) |
Armament: |
|
Cruelle was a schooner-cannoniere (gun-schooner), launched in 1793. The British captured her in June 1800 and commissioned her as HMS Cruelle. She spent a little over a year in the Mediterranean, serving at Malta and Alexandria before the Royal Navy sold her in 1801.
French service and capture
Cruelle was one of seven Vesuve-class brick-canonniers, though she herself was described as being schooner-rigged.[2] However, her captors described her as a brig.
In late 1794 she sailed from Brest to Guadeloupe to alert the French there that a naval squadron under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Duchesne was on its way with supplies and reinforcements.[4] At some point thereafter, Cruelle was converted to a bomb vessel.
On 1 June 1800 about 12 leagues southward of Les HièresMermaid captured Cruelle when Cruelle was only eight hours out of Toulon. Captain R. Dudley Oliver of Mermaid described Cruelle as a brig of six guns, four of which she had thrown overboard during the chase. She had a crew of 43 men under the command of Ensigne de vaisseau Francis Xavier Jeard. She was a bomb vessel but had left her mortar at Toulon as she was carrying supplies for Malta.[5]
The British took Cruelle into service under her existing name. All subsequent British accounts refer to Cruelle as a cutter of ten guns.
British service
Cruelle was present at the surrender of the island of Malta on 5 September 1800. As a result, she was entitled to share in the prize money for the island.[6]
Cruelle was registered on 3 October 1800 and commissioned in February 1801 under Lieutenant Charles Inglis for the Mediterranean.[3]
On 8 March she was at Abu Qir Bay under the command of Lieutenant David M'Gie (or McGhie),[7] Cruelle protected the left flank during the landing of troops in Aboukir Bay, together with the cutter Janissary and the gun-vessel Dangereuse.[8] The cutter Entreprenante, schooner Malta, and the gun-vessel Negresse covered the right flank.[8]
Also in March Lieutenant Edward (or Edmond or Edmund) Boger was appointed to command her.[3] On 9 May Cruelle, Kent, and Hector unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria.[9]
In 1850 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service medal with clasp "Egypt" to all naval officers and men who had served there between 8 March and 2 September. In the medal listing Boger is listed as Cruelle's captain. Apparently he personally also received the Turkish gold medal for the gallantry he displayed there.[10][Note 1]
Fate
Cruelle was sold in 1801 at Alexandria. She was deleted from the lists on 13 May 1802.[3]
Notes, citations, and references
- Notes
- Citations
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 21077. pp. 791–792. 15 March 1850.
- 1 2 Winfield and Roberts (2015), p. 274.
- 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), p.356.
- ↑ de Peyreleau (1825), Vol. 3, p.42.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 15274. p. 784. 8 July 1800.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 15605. pp. 929–930. 26 July 1803.
- ↑ James (1837), Vol. 3, p.100.
- 1 2 The London Gazette: no. 15362. pp. 496–498. 5 May 1801.
- ↑ James (1837), p.93.
- ↑ United services magazine, Vol. 1853, Issue 2, p.160.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 17915. p. 633. 3 April 1823.
- References
- de Peyreleau (baron), Eugène Edouard Boyer (1825) Les Antilles françaises: particulièrement la Guadeloupe, depuis leur découverte jusqu'au ler novembre 1825. Volume 3. (Ladvocat).
- James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.
- Winfield, Rif & Stephen S Roberts (2015) French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786 - 1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. (Seaforth Publishing). ISBN 9781848322042