HMS Clio (1807)
HMS Clio (1807 was a 380 ton, 18-gun, Cruizer class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched at James Betts' shipyard in Mistleythorn on 10 January 1807.[1] Her establishment was 71 officers and men, 24 boys and 20 marines. She served in the Baltic during the Napoleonic Wars, accomplished the re-establishment of British rule on the Falklands (1833), and participated in the First Opium War. She was broken up in 1845.
Napoleonic Wars
In February 1807 Cmdr. Thomas Folliott Baugh commissioned her and sailed her to the Leith Station on the North Sea.[1] Here he succeeded in taking several prizes. While cruising off Fleckoro on 21 September, Clio captured a small Danish privateer with six guns and eleven men. Then on 7 December she captured the Vrouw Heltya. Early the next year, on 28 February, she took five Danish vessels.
On 30 March 1808, during the Gunboat War, Clio entered Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, and briefly captured the fort at Skansin. The fort surrendered without firing a shot as the landing party approached. The landing party spiked the fort's eight 18-pounder guns and took all the smaller guns and weapons before leaving. Shortly after, on 6 May, a German privateer who had assumed the name "Baron von Hompesch" plundered the defenseless city and seized the property of the Danish Crown Monopoly. The Admiralty Prize Court, however, refused to condemn it as a lawful prize.[2] Later, after the Jørgen Jørgensen affair (see also HMS Talbot), Britain declared the Faroese, the Icelanders, and the settlers in Greenland as "stranger friends" who were to be left in peace.
After this adventure Clio captured some more Danish vessels. On 10 August she captured the Vrow Sophia, and on 1 September the Junge Jacob and the Wilhelmina Frederica.
Baugh was promoted to Post-captain on 21 October 1810, at which point Cmdr. William Farrington took command.[1] Clio'sprimary occupation was escorting convoys to and from the Baltic. On 14 October 1812 in the Baltic, boats from Clio and Hamadryad captured the French privateer Pilotin, which was carrying four 12-pounder carronades and 31 men. Three Danish luggers mounting two guns each came out from Rødby to support Pilotin but retreated when the British boats advanced towards them.
Post-war
Then from 1816 to 1822 Clio was at Chatham, first in Ordinary and then being fitted for sea. In February 1823 she was commissioned under C. Strangways for the Nore.[1]
From 1826 to early 1827 her captain was Cmdr. Robert Aitchinson, and she performed anti-smuggling patrols in the North Sea. Then in April 1827 Cmdr. Robert Deans took command.[1] Clio was at the Nore and from 1828 to 1829 at Cork. Between December 1829 and July 1830 she was at Plymouth being fitted as a ship sloop.[1]
From 30 April 1830 to 17 June 1833 Clio was under Commander John James Onslow. Around 19 July 1830 she sailed for South America, and on 15 December she was in Rio de Janeiro. Next, 2 January 1833, Clio participated in the re-establishment of British rule on the Falklands. Onslow arrived at Vernet's settlement at Port Louis to request that the Argentine authorities replace the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate with the British one and leave the islands. Lt. Col. José María Pinedo, of the schooner Sarandi considered resisting, but as most of his crew were British, thought better of it and sailed on 5 January.[3]
In July 1833 Clio was in Portsmouth to be fitted as a 16-gun brig again.[1] In 1835 she was at Portsmouth for refitting, but by 2 August she was in Lisbon, on her way with a small squadron for The Gambia to settle some unrest in the area. She was in The Gambia by 2 September and then sailed to join Stag and Tweed. By November Clio was on the south coast of Spain. She sailed to Tarragona in June 1836. By 18 May 1839 she was in Portsmouth.
Hydra towed Lily into Portsmouth on 23 May 1839 to be paid off. Cmdr. Deare and almost all his officers transferred from Clio to recommission Lily. Commander Stephen Greville Fremantle was appointed to take over Clio.
Clio sailed for South America in May 1839 and was in the Rio Plata on 13 Jan 1841. She spent most of the year cruising out of Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro. On 27 June she captured the slaver Felix Vincedor; prize money was paid on 31 August 1844. On 12 May a boat under Lieut. Cox, with 12 men captured a slaver in the Piumas Islands with 300 slaves aboard. However, some seven boats with a dozen men apiece sortied and re-captured the slaver, burning it after having landed the slaves.[4] A week later, while Cox was taking water at Campos, some of the slavers took him and men prisoner after wounding four seamen. Shortly thereafter the Brazilians released their British captives.[5] At the end of September she left Simon's Bay for the East Indies. On 6 November Fremantle was promoted to Acting Captain and appointed to Southampton. Clio's new captain was Commander Edward Norwich Troubridge.
Opium War
Late in 1841 Clio sailed to China for the First Opium War. On 12 December 1841 she struck a rock (Clio Rock), just west of Pak-Leak Island, near Macao.
On 13 June 1842, Clio anchored off Woosung. On 16 June, after the defences at the mouth of the river were sounded and buoyed, the British bombarded the works on both sides of the river as part of the commencement of operations against Shanghai. She then participated in the expedition up the Yang-tse-Keang, to the end of hostilities and signing of the Treaty of Nanking on 29 August. Troubridege's replacement as captain of Clio from 30 December 1842 was Commander James Fitzjames.
Fate
Clio was broken up at Portsmouth in 1845.[1]
References
- Bethel, Leslie (2009) The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade: Britain, Brazil and the Slave Trade Question 1807-1869. (Cambridge University Press). ISBN 9780521101134
- 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.
- Harvey, Arnold D. (1992) Collision of empires : Britain in three world wars, 1793-1945. (London: Hambledon). ISBN 9781852850784
- Thomas, Hugh (1999) The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade : 1440-1870. (Simon & Schuster). ISBN 9780684835655
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
- HMShip.com
