History | |
---|---|
France | |
Name | Brave |
Builder | Probably built in Bordeaux |
Launched | circa 1799 |
Captured | 1803 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Displacement | c. 1,000 tons |
Tons burthen | 611 (French; "of load") |
Length |
|
Beam | 10.72 m (35 ft 2 in) |
Draught | 5.2 m (17 ft 1 in) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Armament | 26 × 12-pounder guns |
United Kingdom | |
Name | Barbadoes |
Namesake | Barbados |
Acquired | c.1803 by capture |
Fate | Gift to Royal Navy 1804 |
United Kingdom | |
Name | HMS Barbadoes |
Acquired | 1804 by gift |
Commissioned | October 1804 |
Fate | Wrecked 27 September 1812 |
General characteristics [2] | |
Class and type |
|
Tons burthen |
|
Length |
|
Beam | 35 ft 2+5⁄8 in (10.7 m) |
Depth of hold | 10 ft 3 in (3.1 m) (overall) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Complement | 195 |
Armament |
|
Notes | Plans are available in Lyon.[3] |
HMS Barbadoes was originally a French privateer and then slave ship named Brave or Braave. A British slave ship captured her in September 1803. In 1803–1804 she became the British privateer Barbadoes for a few months. In 1804 the inhabitants of Barbados purchased her and donated her to the Royal Navy, which took her into service as HMS Barbadoes. She wrecked on 27 September 1812.
Barbadoes was a privateer named Braave, or Brave. The key source for British warships declares that she was built in Bordeaux in 1799 and captured on 16 March 1804,[4] or in May 1803,[5] in either case in the West Indies. In both cases it attributes the capture to HMS Loire. HMS Loire did capture a privateer named Braave on 16 March 1804, but on the Irish station, not in the West Indies. Furthermore, Braave, was armed with sixteen 12 and 6-pounder guns and had a crew of 110 men.[6] She therefore appears to have been about half the size of the vessel that became Barbadoes.
There was a French vessel named Brave that Lloyd's List reported the British had brought into St Lucia in 1803. Lloyd's List referred to her as being the former privateer Brave, and to have been coming from Africa.[7] The vessel in question was the negrier (slave ship) Brave that the British captured in 1803, in one account as she was coming from West Africa. Brave, under the command of Jean-David Sers and with owner Jacques Conte, had embarked 760 (or 733) captives in West Africa and arrived at an unspecified port in the British Caribbean with 700.[8][a]
By a French account, two privateers from Liverpool had captured Brave of the coast of Angola on 14 September 1803 after an action of two hours that left eight Frenchmen dead and 14 wounded.[9] By British accounts, there was only one captor, the Liverpool slave ship Tamer, which suffered five men killed and seven wounded in the engagement. Furthermore, although Tamer and Brave had possibly stopped at St Lucia, they sailed on to Barbados. On the way, Tamer developed a leak and foundered. Brave carried the crew and slaves of both vessels into Barbados.
French sources describe Brave as a privateer frigate based in Bordeaux and probably built there circa 1799. She was pierced for 40 guns. From 1799 to 1800 she was under a Captain Dreans. From 1800 to September 1800 she was under François Beck.
On 2 April 1801, as the letter-of-marque Nancy, Davidson master, was returning from Sierra Leone, the French privateer Braave captured Nancy at 50°42′N 12°14′W / 50.700°N 12.233°W.[10] Four days later, HMS Cambrian recaptured Nancy.[11] Nancy arrived at Plymouth before 14 April.[10]
On 12 May 1801, Lloyd's List (LL) reported that the French privateer Braave had captured Nimble, Nuttell, master, as she was sailing from Demerara to Liverpool. HMS Révolutionnaire recaptured Nimble and Marina, another vessel that Braave had also taken.[12][13]
In its next issue, Lloyd's List reported that HMS Glenmore had recaptured two merchant vessels that had fallen prey to the French privateer Braave. One vessel was Camilla, Preston, master, which had been sailing from Grenada to Liverpool. The other was Guiana Planter, Wedge, master, which had been sailing from St Kitts to Portsmouth. Glenmore sent Guiana Planter into Cork.[14]
Braave later captured six more merchant vessels, Shedden, Victory, Vine, Ann, Urania, and Cecilia. Braave put all her prisoners on Ann, Silk, master, and let her go. Glenmore recaptured Urania and set off after Braave.[15] Glenmore then recaptured West Indian, Victory, Vine, and Cecilia. They and Urania all arrived at Cork.[16]
From 1802 to June 1803 Braave served as a merchantman under Jean-David Conte.[17] He had purchased her from Jacques Ségur. She sailed on 18 June 1802 for the Indian Ocean under the command of Captain David Sers. She carried a dozen passenger and two cargoes, one cargo of goods intended for the slave trade with Mozambique, and one, consisting in particular of white and red wine, for the French settlers at Isle de France (Mauritius). Brave arrived at Port Louis on 9 September after a record-setting voyage. The plan had been that the local merchants Tabois and Dubois would hire her for 50,000 piastres to sail to India's Coromandel Coast to acquire textiles. Instead, the merchants provided locally available textiles. It is possible that Brave traded with Africa's east coast, while waiting to sail to the west. She sailed for Angola in late April 1803.[18]
As discussed above, the British captured Brave on 14 September, together with her 750 or so captives and 300,000 francs of Indian merchandise.[19]
In September 1804 Ceres, Penelope, and Thetis, were one day out of Barbados when they encountered a French privateer. They were able to repulse the privateer and came into Barbados. There the governor informed them that the privateer they had encountered was Buonaparte, and he dispatched the "private ship of war" Barbadoes in pursuit.[20]
Barbadoes was the former French privateer Braave, and this was her second cruize since the British had captured her. On her first cruize she reportedly had captured the French privateer that had captured the British sloop of war Lilly and had taken the French privateer into Barbados.[20] The Lilly in question was probably the vessel that the French privateer Dame-Ambert had captured on 15 July 1804, making Dame-Ambert the privateer that Barbadoes had captured.[b]
On the evening of 27 September 1812 Barbadoes was at Sable Island while escorting three vessels to Newfoundland from Bermuda. She grounded and it proved impossible to free her. When the pumps could not keep up with the water entering from leaks, Captain Huskisson decided to abandon ship; one man drowned as the crew tried to reach shore. Before they left, 6300 dollars that she carried were lowered into the water attached to buoys marking the spot.[34]
Two other vessels in the convoy also wrecked on Sable Island. The surviving vessel went into Halifax, Nova Scotia. There Admiral Sir John Warren, commander in chief of the North America and West Indies Station, despatched HMS Shannon and the schooner Bream to rescue the crew and retrieve the money Barbadoes was carrying. The rescuers arrived on 10 October, almost two weeks after Barbadoes had wrecked.
The subsequent court-martial of Huskisson, his officers, and crew blamed the loss of Barbadoes on a very strong current having carried Barbadoes onto the island.[34]