HMS Cyane (1806)
| HMS Cyane from stern | |
| Career (United Kingdom) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Cyane |
| Ordered: | 30 January 1805 |
| Builder: | John Bass, Topsham, Exeter |
| Laid down: | August 1805 |
| Launched: | 14 October 1806 |
| Completed: | 13 July 1807 |
| Commissioned: | March 1807 |
| Honours and awards: |
Naval General Service Medal with clasps:
|
| Captured: | 20 February 1815 |
| Career (US) | 100x35px |
| Name: | USS Cyane |
| Acquired: | By capture, 20 February 1815 |
| Commissioned: | 1815 |
| Decommissioned: | 1827 |
| Fate: | Broken up, 1836 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 16-gun Banterer-class sixth-rate post ship[1] [2] |
| Tons burthen: | 539 39/94 bm |
| Length: |
118 ft 2 in (36.0 m) (overall) 98 ft 7.25 in (30.1 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 32 ft 0.5 in (9.8 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 10 ft 6 in (3.20 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| Complement: |
|
| Armament: |
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HMS Cyane was a Royal Navy Banterer-class sixth-rate post ship of nominally 22 guns, built in 1806 at Topsham, near Exeter, England. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Columbine but renamed Cyane on 6 December of that year. Cyane had a distinguished career in British service that included the award in 1847 of a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal to any still surviving crew members of either of two actions. On 20 February 1815, she and HMS Levant engaged the USS Constitution; outgunned, both had to surrender. She then served as the USS Cyane, including a stint on anti-slavery duties, until she was broken up in 1836.
Contents
Commissioning and early service
She initially mounted 22 long 9-pounders on her main deck and also eight 24-pounder carronades and two long 6-pounders on her quarter-deck and forecastle. By the time that Captain Thomas Staines commissioned her in March 1807, the Navy Board had added two brass howitzers to her armament, while exchanging her 9-pounders for 32-pounder carronades. The Board also increased her complement by twenty to 175 officers, men and boys.
In 1807, Cyane took part in the operations off Copenhagen in September 1807. After the capitulation of the Danish navy she was employed in the blockade of Zealand.[3]
Mediterranean service
In February 1808, Cyane sailed for the Mediterranean. There her boats captured eight merchantmen before, on 22 May, she captured the letter of marque Medusa, of 12 guns and 80 men, cruising of Majorca. Medusa was the last Spanish ship that the British captured before Spain turned against Napoleon.[3]
For a year Cyane sailed the south coast of Spain, assisting Spanish anti-French forces. She then transferred to the command of Rear Admiral Martin, who was responsible for the defense of Sicily. On 8 May 1809, Cyane captured a bombard and drove another vessel ashore near Naples. Two days later, Cyane and HMS Alceste sank two gunboats protecting a French convoy at Terracina. Then, on 14 and 15 May, the two British vessels raided a depot at the promontory of Monte Circello, near the Pontine Marshes and Terracina, and brought off a large quantity of timber. Two days later, Staines captured a Martello tower mounting two heavy guns. He pretended to the garrison that powder had been laid to blow them up. When the French soldiers dithered he fired a musket through the keyhole and they all came tumbling out. Cyane and Alceste later captured two more Martello towers.[4] On 11 June, Admiral sailed from Milazzo in N. W. Sicily in HMS Canopus, together with Cyane, as well as his entire fleet of some 130 other vessels. Sometime after 15 June, Cyane, HMS Espoir, and 12 Sicilian gunboats sailed southward to cruise between Procida and Cape Miseno to hinder reinforcements reaching the islands.
Then on 24 June, Cyane began what turned out to be three days of intense action. First, she drove 12 gunboats into the Bay of Pozzuoli and cut out two polacres from under different batteries, one containing troops to reinforce Procida. The following morning a 42-gun frigate (the Cérès), a 28-gun corvette (the Fama), and the division of gunboats attempted to come out of the bay and force their way to Naples, but Cyane and her squadron drove them back, with no great damage to either side.
On 26 June, Cyane, Espoir, and a flotilla of gunboats brought the French to action, capturing 18 gunboats and destroying four. Cyane received 23 large shot in her hull and lost two men killed, one mortally wounded, and six lightly wounded. That afternoon, fifteen French soldiers at a battery on Point Mesino surrendered to boats from Cyane, which then spiked their guns.
On the morning of 27 June, Cyane came to be becalmed under a battery of four 42-pounders. After two hours, Staines led a landing party that succeeded in spiking the guns and throwing one of the mortars into the sea, all without loss. That evening, Cyane again engaged Cérès for one and a half hours before having to break off the fight as she was running out of powder and both vessels were getting too close to the mole at Naples. Staines and his two lieutenants were wounded in the action, Staines losing his arm, and one of the lieutenants dying the following summer while at home. Cyane lost two killed, as well as a midshipman and sixteen other men wounded. Cyane was so damaged by the three day’s of fighting that Admiral Lord Collingwood ordered her home for a refit. Staines was knighted on 6 December and in April 1810 transferred to HMS Hamadryad. In 1847 all surviving members of the crew of Cyane that had served between 25 and 27 June received the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "CYANE 25-27 JUNE 1809".[5]
Captain Francis Collier served as captain of Cyane from September 1810 until May 1812. In early 1812, a seaman named Oakey struck Collier, was charged, found guilty and sentenced to death. His plea for a stay of execution was denied, and every ship in port sent a boat of seamen to witness the hanging. Oakey came on deck with his arms tied behind him, attended by the Chaplain, and the sentence of the Court Martial was read. Then Capt Hall produced a letter from the Prince Regent that, at Collier's request, commuted Oakey's sentence to transportation . The reprieve came as a surprise to Oakey, who fell on his knees and wept.[6]
From May 1812, Cyane was under Captain Thomas Forrest.
On 16 January 1814, in company with the 74-gun third-rate ship of the line HMS Venerable and her prize, the ex-French letter of marque brig Jason, she spotted two 44-gun French frigates, Alcmène and Iphegenie. Venerable joined her and after a chase, in which Cyane was left far behind, captured Alcmène after losing two men dead and four wounded, while the French lost 32 dead and 50 wounded. Jason and Cyane tracked Iphegenie and initially fired on her but broke off the engagement because they were out-gunned. Cyane continued the chase for over three days until Venerable was able to rejoin the fight. On 20 January 1814, after what amounted in all to a four day chase, Venerable captured Iphegenie. Before meeting up with the British ships, the two French vessels had taken some eight prizes.[7] The British took Alcmène into service as Dunira, later HMS Immortalite, but as a receiving ship in Portsmouth. Ipheginie became Palma and then HMS Gloire but was laid up in Ordinary until sold in 1817. The action resulted in the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "CYANE 16 JANY. 1814".
Cyane vs. the USS Constitution
On 20 February 1815, Cyane , Captain George Falcon, and the 20-gun Levant, Captain the Honorable George Douglas, were about 100 miles east of Madeira. At about one o'clock in the afternoon Cyane tacked towards a strange vessel and challenged her. When she received no reply she assumed the other to be an American frigate, so made haste towards Levant. The frigate was the USS Constitution, which had left Boston on 11 December 1814.
Off Cape Finisterre on 8 February 1815, Charles Stewart of the Constitution had learned the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, but realized that before it was ratified, a state of war would still exist. (The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the treaty on February 16, 1815, and President James Madison exchanged ratification papers with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17; the treaty was proclaimed on February 18.)
Although he knew they were outgunned, Douglas decided to fight in the hope of disabling Constitution sufficiently to save two valuable convoys that had sailed from Gibraltar a few days back in company with the two British ships.
Just after 6 o'clock Cyane got on the port bow of the Constitution, while Levant got on the port quarter. Cyane and Levant exchanged a series of broadsides with Constitution for about half an hour, but Stewart soon out-maneuvered both of them. After Levant drew off for repairs, he concentrated fire on Cyane. During this time, out of her crew of 145 men and 26 boys, Cyane had six killed and 13 wounded. She also took on five feet of water in her hold and had so much damage to her masts and rigging that she became unmanageable and had to which soon strick her colors.[8] [Note 1]
The Constitution's second lieutenant came aboard Cyane as prize master, and Constitution left her to pursue Levant. Levant returned to engage Constitution, but once she saw that Cyane had been defeated she turned and attempted escape.[9] Constitution soon overtook her, and after several more broadsides, she too struck her colors.[8] Out of her 115 men and 16 boys, the Levant had six seamen and marines killed and one officer and 14 seamen and marines wounded.
Stewart remained with his new prizes overnight while ordering repairs to all ships. Constitution had suffered little damage in the battle, though it was later discovered she had twelve 32-pound British cannonballs embedded in her hull, none of which had penetrated through.[10] The Americans took their prisoners to St. Jago (Santiago) in the Cape Verde Islands and landed them there, but left in a hurry when British ships were reported.[8] Cyane took one course and Levant took another.
Capt. Sir George Collier in Leander caught sight of them off Porto Praya on 11 March and succeeded in recapturing Levant. Cyane successfully escaped recapture; she arrived in in the North River on 10 April and anchored near the USS Constellation. She was adjudicated by a prize court and purchased by the Navy who renamed her USS Cyane.
Before Collier could pursue Constitution, news reached him that the signing of the Treaty of Ghent had ended the war.
A court-martial held on board Akbar at Halifax on 28 June 1815 acquitted both Falcon and Douglas for their defense against a superior enemy. The court also praised the crew who, with the exception of three men, resisted the severe pressures of the Americans to wean them from their allegiance to Britain.
American service
Cyane cruised off the west coast of Africa from 1819-1820 and in the West Indies from 1820-1821 protecting the Liberian colony and suppressing piracy and the slave trade. In this regard she was a predecessor to the Africa Squadron. She cruised in the Mediterranean during 1824-1825, and on the Brazil Station during 1826-1827.
Several notable Americans served aboard Cyane. In 1819 Matthew Calbraith Perry joined her and sailed with her to Liberia. The reason she sailed to Liberia was that President James Monroe had the Secretary of the Navy order an American vessel to convoy the Elizabeth to Africa with the first contingent of freed slaves that the American Colonization Society was resettling there. Of the 86 black emigrants sailing on the Elizabeth, only about one-third were men; the rest were wives and children.
Captain Jesse Duncan Elliott took command of Cyane In March of 1825 she received as her second lieutenant Uriah P. Levy, a Sephardic Jew who would rise to the rank of Commodore in the US Navy. While on Cyane, Levy became very popular after saving the life of an American who had been impressed into the Brazilian Navy. Levy’s courageous act so struck the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro I, that he ordered that no U.S. citizen ever again be impressed into the Brazilian Navy. Pedro then offered Levy the rank of captain in the Imperial Brazilian Navy. Levy declined, stating, “I would rather serve as a cabin boy in the United States Navy than hold the rank of Admiral in any other service in the world.”
Fate
Cyane was laid up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard where she sank in 1835. She was raised and broken up the following year.[11]
Note
- ↑ Blake, Nicholas Howard (2005). The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy. Stackpole Books. ISBN Stackpole Books.
- ↑ Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the United States, including Officers of the Marine Corps, and other, for the Year 1825. 1825.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Gentleman's Magazine September 1830, p.279.
- ↑ The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 79, Part 2, p. 968.
- ↑ Joseph Allen (1853) Battles of the British Navy. (London: H.G. Bohn), pp. 286-9.
- ↑ http://www.houghton.idv.hk/chapter14.htm
- ↑ William James & 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), pp.259-61.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Abbot 1896, Volume II, Part II, Chapter XVI
- ↑ Hill (1905), p. 172
- ↑ Martin 1997, p. 200
- ↑ Silversteen, Paul H.; "The Sailing Navy 1775-1854"; p 36; Naval Institute Press; ISBN 978-0415978729
References
- Abbot, Willis J. (1896). The Naval History of the United States. 2. Peter Fenelon Collier. OCLC 3453791. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/26416.
- Colledge, J.J. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1987. ISBN 0-87021-652-X.
- Hill, Frederic Stanhope (1905). Twenty-Six Historic Ships. The Knickerbocker Press. OCLC 1667284. http://books.google.com/books?id=aAMKAAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=5.
- Martin, Tyrone G. (1980). A Most Fortunate Ship: A Narrative History of "Old Ironsides". Chester: Globe Peqout Press. ISBN 0871060337. OCLC 6707539.
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.
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