HMS Ballahoo (1804)

Career (UK)
Name:	HMS Ballahoo
Ordered:	23 June 1803
Builder:	Goodrich & Co. (prime contractor), Bermuda
Laid down:	1803
Launched:	1804
Captured:	29 April 1814 by American privateer
Fate:	Wrecked immediately thereafter
General characteristics
Type:	Ballahoo-class schooner
Tonnage:	70 41/94 bm
Length:	55 ft 2 in (16.81 m) (overall) 40 ft 10.5 in (12.5 m) (keel)
Beam:	18 ft 0 in (5.49 m)
Depth of hold:	9 ft 0 in (2.74 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Schooner
Complement:	20
Armament:	4 x 12-pounder Carronades

HMS Ballahoo (1804), aka Balahou, Ballahou or Ballahon, was the first of the Royal Navy's Ballahoo-class schooners, vessels of 4 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. She patrolled primarily in the Leeward Islands, taking several small prizes, before an American privateer captured her in 1814 during the War of 1812.

Service

She was commissioned in January 1804 under Lieut. William Shephard. In September Lieut. Stannard Eaton Travers took over. He was appointed to Ballahoo immediately after receiving his commission on 23 September 1804. When she was ordered to Halifax in February 1805 he removed to the frigate Surveillante.

Command then transferred to Lieut. H.N. Bowen, who was killed in 1806. Command then passed to Lieut. Thomas Murray.

On 4 August 1807, Ballahoo was in company with the schooner Laura, of 10 guns, when they encountered the French letter of marque Rhone some 16 miles north of Tobago. After a running fight of several hours, they captured the French brig after Rhone had suffered two dead and five wounded out of her crew of 26; the British had no casualties. Rhone, under the command of Francis Goureu, was of 90 tons (bm), mounted six long 6-pounder guns, and was 10 days out from Martinique, having captured nothing.

On 20 August Ballahoo's boats, with the assistance of the 1-gun privateer Maria that Port d'Espagne had taken, destroyed a small privateer in the Bay of San Juan. On 12 September Ballahoo assisted Port d'Espagne in capturing another small privateer, the Rosario, in the same bay. The Rosario also was armed with one gun, and had a crew of 34, all of whom escaped on shore. In October Ballahou was in North American waters and in the Leeward Islands.

In 1808 her commander was Lieut. George Mills. On 3 July, whilst cruising with the ship-sloop Wanderer and the schooner Subtle small squadron between the islands of Anguilla and Saint Martin, she attempted an attack on St.-Martin, with a view to reducing the number of havens available to French privateers, but unfortunately the opposition proved stronger than intelligence had suggested.

The attack turned into a disaster. A landing party of 38 seamen and marines from all three vessels, under Lieut. Spearing of Subtle, succeeded in capturing a lower battery with few losses and spiking six guns. An attack on the upper fort failed, with Spearing being killed a few feet from the French ramparts. When the British withdrew to their boats the French captured them. In all, the British lost seven killed and 30 wounded, all the dead and most of the wounded being from Subtle. The French lost one man wounded.

Not surprisingly, French and British accounts differ substantially in several places. Crofton's account reports that the British landing party consisted of 153 men, and a French account talks of 200 men, all of whom were killed or captured, including Mills of Ballahoo. (The total establishment of the three British vessels amounted to about 190 men.) Crofton negotiated a truce under which he was able to reclaim all the prisoners who could be moved. Crofton claimed that the French had been forewarned and had 900 men in the fort. The French claimed the fort had a garrison of 28 regulars and 15 militia men. That the French permitted their British prisoners to leave is more consistent with the French figures on their numbers than the British. Crofton reported that the French buried the English dead with full military honors with both the fort and the British firing salutes.

In January and February 1810 Ballahoo, under Mills, participated in the capture of Guadeloupe. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issuance of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "GUADALOUPE" to all all still surviving participants of that campaign.

Capture

In 1810 Lieut. Norfolk King took command. On 29 April 1814, the American 5-gun privateer Perry captured Ballahoo off South Carolina. Apparently the chase took about an hour, including a fight of about 10 minutes. There was no report of casualties on either side. The Americans took her into the port of Wilmington, North Carolina. At the time of the capture, Ballahoo had two of her cannon stored below deck to lower her center of gravity in bad weather, and a crew of thirteen men. The Perry's five guns included one long 18 or 24-pounder on a pivot, and she had a crew of 80.

Fate

Apparently, as Ballahoo entered the port of Wilmington, a British brig chased her ashore, where she was destroyed.

References

• James, William, and Frederick Chamier (1837) The naval history of Great Britain: from the declaration of war by France in 1793 to the accession of George IV. (London: R. Bentley).
• Maclay, Edgar Stanton (1899) A history of American privateers. (New York: D. Appleton & Co.).
• Norie, J.W. (1842) The naval gazetteer, biographer and chronologist; containing a history of the late wars from ... 1793 to ... 1801; and from ... 1803 to 1815, and continued, as to the biographical part to the present time. (London: C. Wilson).
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.