HMS Danae (1798)
| Career (France) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | Vaillante |
| Launched: | 1796 |
| Captured: | 7 August 1798 |
| Career (UK) |  |
| Name: | HMS Danae |
| Acquired: | By capture 7 August 1798 |
| Captured: | By mutineers 17 March 1800 |
| Career (France) | |
| Name: | Vaillante |
| Acquired: | From mutineers 17 March 1800 |
| Fate: | Sold out of service 1801 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | ship-corvette |
| Tonnage: | 507 8/94 bm |
| Length: |
119 ft 2 in (36.32 m) (overall) 99 ft 7.25 in (30.4 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 30 ft 11.25 in (9.4298 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 8 ft 11 in (2.72 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Complement: |
|
| Armament: |
UD:20 x 2-pounder carronades |
HMS Danae (1798) was the 20-gun French ship-corvette Vaillante that Indefatigable under Captain Edward Pellew captured off the Île de Ré on 7 August 1798. Some members of crew mutinied in 1800 and succeeded in turning her over to the French. The French sold her out of service in 1801.
French service
She had been built at Bayonne between 1794 and August 1796, and was launched in 1796.[1] She was armed with 20 long 8-pounders and 175 men, commanded by Lieutenant la Porte, and bound to Cayenne. She was carrying 25 banished priests, 27 convicts, and Madame Rovère and family.[2]
After Indefatigable captured Vaillante, she was registered and renamed on 11 October and arrived in Portsmouth on 20 October. She fitted out there until February 1799.[1] James draws attention to the fact that the British equipped her with more cannons, but fewer men, than the French had.[2]
British service
Captain Lord William Proby commissioned Danae in December 1798. In March 1799 she got embayed in a bay of shoals and rocks near the Île de Batz during a gale. She parted two cables but was brought up by letting go a third anchor. The storm stove in all her boats and Proby slipped and fell down the main hatchway, dislocating his shoulder and breaking two ribs. On 4 April she captured the 14-gun lugger Sans Quartier.[1] Sans Quartier had a crew of 56 men and though she was pierced for 14 guns, she had thrown all overboard in an attempt to escape from Danae.
On 25 December 1799 Danae, Sylph and the hired armed cutter Nimrod assisted Ethalion, which had hit some rocks. They were able to rescue the crew and Ethalion was then burnt.
The next year, on 6 January 1800 Danae was in company with Excellent and Uranie when Excellent recaptured the American vessel Franklin, which a French privateer Alliance had taken the day before. Then on 6 February 1800, she, with other vessels, captured the 38-gun frigate Pallas, Captain Jacques Epron, from St Malo bound to Brest, off St Malo.[1][2] The British took Pallas into service as Pique.[3]
Mutiny
On 6 March 1800 Danae sailed from Plymouth on a cruise to the westward. At 9:30 in the evening on 14 March mutineers took control of the deck while the officers were mostly below decks asleep. The mutineers succeeded in securing the hatchways, preventing Proby, his officers and the loyal seamen from coming up on deck.[4]
The following morning the mutineers reached Fort Conquête in Finistère where they met up with the French brig Colombe, which Danae had herself chased into the port.[4] There a detachment of soldiers came aboard and accepted Lord Proby's surrender.[4] The two vessels then sailed together to Brest.[1] On the way the frigates Anson and Boadicea chased them briefly before breaking off after the mutineers falsely signaled that they were in pursuit of Colombe.[4]
The French paroled Captain Proby and his officers. A court martial aboard Gladiator on 17 June honourably acquitted Proby, his officers and the loyal members of the crew of blame.[4]
Fate
The French restored Danae to her original name. They then sold Vaillante out of service in 1801.[1]
Post script
On 30 May 1800 Dasher left Plymouth on a cruise but returned the same evening and landed two seamen, mutineers from the Danae that Dasher had taken out of a cartel off the Sound.
On 12 June 1800 Indefatigeable captured the French privateer Vengeur, which had sailed from Bordeaux two days previously for Brazil. Her crew were landed at Plymouth where on 24 August when Lieut. Neville Lake, who had been First Lieutenant on Danae recognized John Barnett, the principal ringleader of the mutiny. The court martial on 2 September sentence Barnett to death; he was hanged for the fore-yard arm of Pique on 9 September.
At the end of September the Guernsey privateers Alarm, Dispatch and Marquis of Townsend recaptured a large West Indiaman being taken into Brest. She was the prize of the French privateer Grand Mouche and it turned out that the prize crew included seven mutineers from Danae.
Another mutineer, John M'Donald, alias Samuel Higgins, was seized in the streets of Wapping disguised as an American and with protection papers. He was tried aboard Irresistible at the Nore on 10 June 1801. He was hanged from the yard arm of Zealand on 20 June. Before dying M'Donald revealed that an Irish priest named Ignatius Finney and two men named Jackson and Williams had proposed the mutiny and the seizure of the ship.
References
- James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV.. 2 & 3. R. Bentley.
- Pope, Dudley (2003) The devil himself: the mutiny of 1800. (Ithaca, NY: McBooks).ISBN 978-1590130353
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
