PENELOPE HMS 1798

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aukepalmhof
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PENELOPE HMS 1798

Post by aukepalmhof » Mon Feb 12, 2018 8:43 pm

Built as a frigate by George Parsons, Bursledon for the Royal Navy.
04 May 1797 ordered.
June 1797 keel laid down.
26 September 1798 launched under the name HMS PENELOPE.
Tonnage 1.051 ton (bm), dim. 150.0 x 39.8 x 13.0ft.
Armament: 30 – 18pdrs., quarter deck 6 – 9pdrs. and 8 –32pdrs. carronades, forecastle 2 – 9pdrs. and 4 – 32pdr carronades.
Crew 294.
From 30 September till 30 November 1798 at Portsmouth fitted out and completed.
Building cost £36.988.

October 1798 commissioned under command of Capt. Charles Paget.
03 January 1799 sailed for Madeira with an East Indies convoy.
March 1799 command was taken over by Capt. Henry Blackwood.
05 September 1799 sailed for the Mediterranean.
26 January 1800 she took the Spanish xebec NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL CARMEN (16-gun) under command of Don Estevanno Barcello and a crew of 130 men.
She was part of a squadron, which blockaded Malta, and when the French GUILLAUME TELL escaped from Malta in the night of 29 March 1800 the HMS PENELOPE sighted her.

The following comes from the logbook of the PENELOPE on the capture of this ship.

Luffed under her stern, and gave him the larboard broadside, bore up under the larbour quarter and gave him the starboard broadside, receiving from him only his stern-chase guns. From this hour till daylight, finding that we could place ourselves on either quarter, the action continued in the foregoing manner, and with such success on our side that, when day broke, the GUILLAUME TELL was found in a most dismantled state.

At 05.00 am the HMS LION arrived and a little later the HMS FOUDROYANT and after a gallant resistance in which she totally was dismasted, the GUILLAUME TELL struck her flag.

The PENELOPE lost 2 men in the fight and had 2 wounded.
She towed her prize to Syracuse after she returned to her station off Malta, till this island surrendered on 05 September 1800.
Then she accompanied Lord Keith in his campaign against the French in Egypt, before she set sail for home, where she arrived on 19 March 1802 at Spithead.
May 1802 under command of Capt. William Broughton.
August 1802 sailed for the Mediterranean, later in 1803 under command of temporally Capt. Charles Pater in Lord Keith squadron in the North Sea.
May 1804 took part in the attack on Ver Huell’s convoy off the Belgian coast in support of the cruiser RATTLER and AIMABLE. She got 3 men killed and 4 wounded.
26 August 1806 took part in the chase of the French Le VÉTÉRAN near Belle Isl. off the French coast.
1807 Under command of Capt. John Dick in the Channel Fleet.
13 February 1808 sailed for Halifax.
Early 1809 took part in the blockade of Guadeloupe and capture of Martinique.
September 1810 paid off at Plymouth and put in reserve.
Between August 1813 and February 1814 refitted in a troopship at Plymouth.
November 1813 re-commissioned under command of Cmdr. Charles Sullivan, after her refit was completed sailed for Halifax.
Sullivan was relieved in December 1814 by Cmdr. James Galoway.
31 March 1815 she sailed from Spithead for Canada, the crossing of the North Atlantic was uneventful, but when passing the New Foundland Banks she met large icefields, strong winds and thick fog.
27 April 1815 she entered the St Lawrence and passed 28th Magdalen Island. At the 30th April a course was set to keep her clear from the land, 08.00pm she was in 71 fathoms, and a half hour later during heavy snowfall she struck a rock and grounded hard.
How many men were lost in and later on shore is not know, I have from upwards 40 to 216, which were frozen or drowned. Comdr. Galoway was saved.

(She must be the vessel on the port side of the GUILLIAM TELL the only frigate and with one deck; the other two English Navy vessels were two deckers)

Source: Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Eras by Grocott. http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk
British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793 –1817. Some other web-sites.
Malta 2006 29c sg?, scott?
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