HMS Spartiate (1798)
 Model of the sister ship Achille
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The HMS Spartiate was a battleship with 74 cannons , the 1797 French flag as Le Spartiate from running batch . In 1798 she took part in the naval battle at Abukir , in which she was captured by the Royal Navy with nine other ships and then taken over as a Spartiate in the British service.
history
The Spartiate was built in Toulon from Adriatic oak. The Royal Navy said that oak from southern Europe was particularly tough, which is why prizes made from this wood were given a higher value than other, comparable ships. In English service she fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 under the command of Francis Laforey . She was the final ship of the windward battle line, commanded by Admiral Nelson himself. Together with the Minotaur standing in front of her , she forced the abandonment of the Spanish 80-gun ship Neptuno . According to the entry in the logbooks, two seamen and a cabin boy were killed, the boatswain, two midshipmen, a marine and sixteen seamen were injured. The next day, however, the Neptuno was recaptured by the captured crew and was shipwrecked shortly afterwards.
The Spartiate returned to her home port of Plymouth , where she was repaired from December 1805 to February 1806. She then joined the Canal Fleet, where she was involved in the blockade of Rochefort for the next two years . The captain's log shows that the Spartiade returned to the home port from July 25 to August 3, 1806, from January 14 to February 26, 1807 and from June 29 to September 16, 1807 to take up supplies. In January 1808 she was in the association of Admiral Strachan, who took up the pursuit of Rear Admiral Zacharie Allemand from Rochefort. On February 21, 1808 she was seconded to the Mediterranean Fleet in Palermo and remained in this command until the end of 1809. In June 1809 she took part in the attacks on the islands of Ischia and Procida in the Gulf of Naples .
In the following years the Spartiate was in use at various stations in Portugal, the Canal and the South Atlantic . In 1832 she was involved in the blockade of Dutch ports before returning to South America the following year. It was retired in 1835 and upgraded back to the Hulk seven years later to replace the Hulk Sans Pareil . In 1857 the Spartiate was scrapped.
The flag
On board the Battle of Trafalgar was First Lieutenant James Clephan , to whom the crew presented the ship's Union Jack as a token of victory after the battle . Lieutenant Clephan was a former seaman who had risen to the rank of officer. His family kept the flag along with the original battle damage. It is believed to be the only existing Union Jack from the Battle of Trafalgar. After being put up for sale by a descendant of Clephan's, the flag was auctioned off at Charles Miller Ltd for £ 384,000 on October 21, 2009.
literature
- JJ Colledge ; Ben Warlow (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 .
- Brian Lavery (2003): The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8 .
- Rif Winfield (2005): British warships in the age of sail, 1793-1817: design, construction, careers & fates
- David J. Lyon (2003): The sailing navy list: all the ships of the Royal Navy built, purchased and captured 1688-1860
Footnotes
- ^ [1] William James: Naval History of Great Britain Vol. II, p. 185
- ↑ Nelsonsnavy.co.uk ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ [2] William James: Naval History of Great Britain Vol. IV, p. 73
- ↑ [3] Log of the Minotaur captain
- ^ Naval Database
- ↑ The Times October 8, 2009
- ^ Trafalgar union jack up for sale (English) . In: BBC News , October 8, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
