HMS Phoebe (1795)
 Painting of the capture of the Néréide by the HMS Phoebe
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The HMS Phoebe was a frigate with (nominally) 36 guns of the British Royal Navy , which was used in the coalition wars against France and in the war of 1812 against the United States . Your career is a good example of the diverse tasks and uses of ships of this type.
History of the ship
The Phoebe was launched in Deptford in 1795 . She was the eponymous ship of a class of five 36-gun frigates and the first ship of this name in the Royal Navy. In 1796, under Captain Robert Barlow , she belonged to a British association that blocked the port of Brest , and served as a link between a detachment of smaller ships under Captain Edward Pellew , who watched the harbor, and the main association under Vice Admiral Sir John Colpoys . She was not directly involved in the dramatic events when the French broke out on the unfortunate General Lazare Hoches expedition to Ireland on the night of December 16-17. She was involved in the hunt for the French until she was damaged by a squall and had to come in for repairs. However, she was back at sea in time to put the Atalante (20 cannons) on January 10, 1797 and force her to surrender.
On December 20 of this year, under Barlow's command, she met the French 36-gun frigate Néréide (Captain A. Canon) in the Bay of Biscay , caught up with the fleeing enemy ship and captured it. The losses of the Phoebe then amounted to three dead and ten wounded, the Néréide 20 dead and 55 wounded. Another victim of the frigate was the buccaneer Heureux (22 cannons), whose commander mistook the Phoebe for an East Indiaman in March 1800 and, after a brief battle, swept the flag. During a patrol off the coast of Morocco on February 19, 1801 , the Phoebe met the French 44-gun frigate L'Africaine (Captain Saunier), which had supplies and 400 soldiers on board destined for Egypt . After a two-hour battle, the French ship surrendered. Of the 715 men on board, it had lost no fewer than 200 dead and 144 wounded. The Phoebe had only one dead and twelve wounded. The L'Africaine was so badly damaged that the victors had great difficulty getting her into port. In 1803 the Phoebe belonged to the squadron of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson , which blocked the port of Toulon . On July 14 of the following year she was involved in an exchange of fire with French coastal batteries near Toulon.
Under the command of Captain Thomas Bladen Capel, the Phoebe took part in the 1805 campaign that led to the Battle of Trafalgar . The frigate was one of the ships looking for the French- Spanish fleet and found it on March 29, but could not bring the main British fleet because the course Pierre de Villeneuves in the direction of the Atlantic was not visible. In the naval battle on October 21, 1805, the ship was on the left wing of the British fleet, but played no active role as it was far too vulnerable to the fire of the heavy artillery guns . In the storm that followed the battle, Phoebe was involved in efforts to save two prizes , the French liner Swiftsure and the Spanish liner Bahamas .
1810, the frigate was one under the command of Captain James Hillyar a squadron under Vice Admiral Albemarle Bertie , one landing on November 29, Mauritius undertook and the French garrison forced to surrender on December 3rd. From there, the Phoebe hunted the three French 40-gun frigates Renommée , Clorinde and Néréide , together with the frigates HMS Galatea and HMS Astraea and the sloop HMS Racehorse , and put them to battle on May 20, 1811 off Madagascar . While the Clorinde managed to escape, the reputation had to surrender after a losing battle. The crew of the Néréide , who had escaped into the port of Tamatave , capitulated on May 26th. The Phoebe lost seven dead and 24 wounded in this battle. Later that year, the frigate was part of a fleet of Rear Admiral Robert Stopford , which operated against Java and achieved the surrender of the Dutch troops there on September 18 that year.
During the war of 1812 with the United States, she sailed (still under Captain Hillyar) together with the sloop HMS Cherub (nominally 18 guns, Captain Thomas Tudor Tucker ) in the Pacific for the American frigate USS Essex (Captain David Porter ) Route. The British blocked the enemy ship in Valparaíso ( Chile ) for six weeks . When the Essex lost part of the main mast on March 28, 1814 during an attempt to break out by a gust of wind, Hillyard ordered the attack, although the Americans were still in Chilean territory. The British took advantage of the fact that the Essex was largely armed with carronades , which could only be used effectively over a short distance. The Americans were taken under destructive fire at long range with the long-barreled guns of the British, until Porter surrendered after a two and a half hour battle and the loss of 155 dead and wounded. The Phoebe recorded only four dead and seven wounded, the Cherub recorded one dead and three wounded. After the US warship was eliminated, the British Association destroyed the American fur trading stations on the Columbia River and captured the remaining American whaling ships in the Pacific. While in the Sandwich Islands , the Cherub also captured a group of Essex crewmen who had been abandoned by Porter on Nuku Hiva and who fled from local attacks with the pinch of Sir Andrew Hammond .
In 1815 the Phoebe was launched. The dismantled Hulk served as a barracks and supply ship and was sold for scrapping in 1841.
literature
- William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the earliest times to 1900, Vols. 4-6, London 1899-1901