HMS Scorpion (1771), originally the merchant ship Borryan, purchased in January 1771, and commissioned as the 8-gun fireship HMS Etna. She was converted to a sloop in August 1771 and renamed Scorpion, taking part in Tryon's raid in Connecticut in 1779.[1] She subsequently became one of the British prison ships on the Hudson River.[2]Scorpion was sold in 1780.
HMS Scorpion (1785) was a 16-gun Echo-class sloop launched in 1785 and sold in 1802. She apparently became the whaler and letter of marqueScorpion. She worked in the South Seas whale fishery until the Spaniards captured her in 1808.
HMS Scorpion (1832) was a Cherokee-class brig-sloop launched in 1832, converted to a survey vessel in 1848 and on loan to the Thames Police from 1858. She was broken up in 1874.
HMS Scorpion (1863) was a turret ship, one of two being constructed for the Confederate States of America under the cover story that they were intended for Egypt; the British Government seized them before they were launched in 1863. Scorpion sank in 1903 while being towed for scrapping.
^Allen, Houghton Mifflin Company (1913). A Naval History of the American Revolution. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 2:398–399.
^Cray, Robert E. (1999). "Commemorating the Prison Ship Dead: Revolutionary Memory and the Politics of Sepulture in the Early Republic, 1776–1808". The William and Mary Quarterly. 56 (3): 565–90. doi:10.2307/2674561.
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