HMS Defender (1809)

History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Defender
Acquired:
  • Captured from the French,
  • 10 December 1809
Commissioned: January 1811
Fate: Sold 1814
General characteristics [1]
Tons burthen: 139 ​23⁄94 (bm)
Length:
  • 65 ft 0 1⁄2 in (19.8 m) (overall
  • 54 ft 2 1⁄2 in (16.5 m) (keel)
Beam: 17 ft 2 1⁄2 in (5.2 m) (
Depth of hold: 7 ft 4 in (2.2 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Lugger
Complement: 40
Armament: 8 x 12-pounder carronades

HMS Defender was the French privateer lugger Beau Marseille that Royalist captured in 1809. Defender served without distinction in Home Waters for slightly more than three years before being sold in 1814.

Career

Royalist captured Beau Marseille on 10 December 1809. She was armed with 14 guns, had a crew of 60 men and was three months old. Commander John Maxwell, captain of Royalist, described her as "a very beautiful vessel" and "one of the fastest sailers out of Boulogne."[2][Note 1]

The Royal Navy took Beau Marseille into service as Defender. From 15 February to 16 March 1811 she underwent fitting out at Sheerness.[1]

In January 1811 Lieutenant Moses Cannadey RN commissioned her for The Downs.[1][Note 2]

On 24 June 1813 Defender captured Hope.[3]

Fate

Defender was offered for sale in August 1814.[4] She was sold at Chatham for ₤280 on 1 September 1814.[1]

Notes, citations, and references

Notes

  1. ↑ Beau Marseilles was one of six privateers that Maxwell captured between May 1809 and February 1810. For this productivity Maxwell received promotion to post-captain in June 1810.(Long 1895, p.174.) In 1847 the Admiralty rewarded the surviving claimants from Royalist the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Royalist May & June 1810". Long points out that the dates given on the official list are wrong.
  2. ↑ For several prior years Cannadey had served as the captain of the hired armed lugger Black Joke, which the French captured in the Mediterranean in 1810.

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), p.366.
  2. ↑ "No. 16323". The London Gazette. 9 December 1809. p. 1974.
  3. ↑ "No. 16903". The London Gazette. 31 May 1814. p. 1140.
  4. ↑ "No. 16927". The London Gazette. 20 August 1814. p. 1684.

=References

  • Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
  • Long, William H. (1895) Medals of the British navy and how they were won: with a list of those officers, who for their gallant conduct were granted honorary swords and plate by the Committee of the Patriotic Fund. (Norie & Wilson).
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.
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