HMS Pickle (1800)
| 250px Replica of HMS Pickle at Portsmouth | |
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Pickle |
| Acquired: | Purchased January 1801 as Sting |
| Renamed: | Pickle, 1802 |
| Honours and awards: |
|
| Fate: | Sunk after running aground near Cádiz, 1808 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Topsail schooner |
| Tons burthen: | 127 long tons (129 t) |
| Length: | 73 feet (22 m) |
| Beam: | 20 feet 7.25 inches (6.2802 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Gaff rig with square topsail on main mast |
| Complement: | 40 |
| Armament: | 6 x 12 pdr carronades |
HMS Pickle was a 10-gun topsail schooner of the Royal Navy. She was originally a civilian vessel named Sting, one of several vessels Captain William Frederick Watkins of HMS Nereide seized when he captured the Dutch island of Curaçao in 1800. Lord Hugh Seymour formally purchased her in January 1801 as an armed tender; she was renamed Pickle in 1802. However, on 30 June 1800 Pickle and Gipsy had captured the French privateer Fidele on the Leeward Island station. Sting may have been known as Pickle on station long before the Admiralty made her name change official.
She was at the Battle of Trafalgar and though she was too small to take part in the fighting, Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain. She also participated in a notable single-ship action when she captured the French privateer Favorite in 1807. Pickle was wrecked in 1808, but without loss of life.
Contents
Service
In 1802, under Lieut. Pelletier, Pickle was first used as a dispatch vessel. She sailed to Malta in October, returning to Plymouth on 16 February 1803. After waiting on Admiral Dacres, Lieut. Pelletier took a post-chaise and four and set off for the Admiralty while Pickle went into quarantine in Coney Cove, Stonehouse Pool.
In 1803 she came under the command of Lieut. John Richards Lapenotiere. Pickle was attached to Admiral William Cornwallis' Inshore Squadron, where she was used to reconnoitre enemy harbours during the blockade of Brest, Rochefort, and Lorient. She sailed from Plymouth on the 15 October to cruise in the Channel and on 22 October she took the American vessel Resolution. She sailed from Plymouth again on 28 December and returned on 31 January 1804, having lost her main-topmast and fore-yard in a gale on the 19th.
On 25 March 1804 Pickle went to the assistance of HMS Magnificent, which had run on to a shoal off Brest, and assisted in the rescue of her crew. Her boats and those of the frigate Fox came alongside soon after Magnificent struck and took out her people just before she turned over and went down.
On 26 July, a signal having been made aboard the flag ship in the Hamoaze, a seaman from Pickle, attended by the boats of the fleet, manned and armed, was flogged around the fleet in the Hamoaze and the Sound for mutiny. A seaman from Doris was flogged at the same time for maiming a shipmate with intent to kill him.
In October Pickle captured two French coasters loaded with supplies for the fleet at Brest and brought them into Plymouth.
On 9 October 1805, Pickle was sent with HMS Weazle to assist Captain Henry Blackwood in watching the coast off Cádiz, and to provide reconnaissance services for the fleet. Pickle managed to sail close enough to the coast to provide an exact count of the enemy warships in Cadiz harbour.
Battle of Trafalgar
During the Battle of Trafalgar, Pickle and the other small vessels kept well back from the fighting, since a single broadside from a ship of the line would have sunk her instantly. Pickle herself was stationed to the north-west of the weather line, where Nelson was leading HMS Victory into battle.
In the later stages of the battle, Pickle, Entreprenente, and the boats of Prince George and Swiftsure went to the rescue of the crew of the French ship, Achille, which caught fire and subsequently exploded. Together they rescued two women and about 200 men. Two or three seamen in the other boats were killed by the French guns going off as they became heated.
One of the women was floating on an oar completely naked; she was brought on board the schooner wearing a pair of seaman's trousers and recounted the number of men she had had to fight off when they tried to take her oar. The prisoners in Pickle outnumbered her crew three to one and were heard plotting to take her over to take her into Cadiz. Nothing happened though as Pickle's crew kept a particularly sharp watch over the prisoners.
Pickle was the first ship to bring the news of Nelson's victory to Great Britain, arriving at Falmouth on 4 November 1805, having been chosen to carry the dispatches of Vice Admiral Collingwood, who had assumed command after the death of Nelson. After arriving in Falmouth, Lapenotiere took a coach to London to deliver the dispatches to the Admiralty, receiving a promotion to Commander for his service. The Committee of the Patriotic Society gave him a sword worth 100 guineas.
Favorite
In 1806 Lieut. Daniel Callaway took command of Pickle, sailing her in the Channel. Later that year Lieut. Moses Cannadey replaced Callaway.
On 3 January 1807 the schooner Scorpion was chasing a cutter some 15 miles south of The Lizard when Pickle came up and closed with the enemy. After an exchange of fire Pickle's people boarded and captured the vessel, which turned out to be the privateer Favorite, of 14 guns, under the command of E. J. Boutruche. She was only two months old and had left Cherbourg two days before.[1]
Out of her crew of 70 men, Favorite had lost one man killed and two wounded. Pickle had suffered two men severely wounded and one man slightly wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issue of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "PICKLE 3 JANY. 1807" to all remaining survivors. When Scorpion caught up she took off 69 prisoners who she then landed at Falmouth.[1]
Fate
As Pickle was entering Cadiz carrying dispatches, she was wrecked on the Chipiona shoal on 27 July 1808.[2] Cannadey and his crew were saved. The court martial on 2 August attributed the wrecking to "an unaccountable error in reckoning".[2] Later that year Cannadey took command of the hired armed lugger Black Joke.
Postscript
- To this day the Royal Navy's petty officers have an annual Pickle Night dinner, as do many private clubs in the Commonwealth of Nations. (Pickle Night parallels Trafalgar Night, the commemoration of the battle by the Royal Navy's commissioned officers.)
- The historic and epic 1805 voyage and journey were commemorated in 2005, the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, by the New Trafalgar Dispatch and the Trafalgar Way.
- An exact replica of HMS Pickle was built and took part in bicentenary anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005. [3]
See also
References
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Gossett (1986), p.65.
- ↑ Trafalgar: the big bash, The Sunday Times; May 29, 2005
- Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986). The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. Mansell. ISBN 0-7201-1816-6.
- Howarth, David (1969) Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch. (Atheneum).
External links
