HMS Electra (1808)
HMS Electra was a 16-gun brig-sloop. She was built by the Enterprise Ethéart at (St Malo) as the French Curieux class brig Espiègle and launched in 1804. She was armed in 1807 at Saint Servan.[1] The British frigate Sybille captured her on 16 August 1808. There was already an Espiegle in the Royal Navy so the Navy took the vessel they had just captured into service as HMS Electra. Electra was sold in 1816.
French service
She sailed from Lorient on 15 August 1807 under the command of Lieut. de vaisseau Maujouan and in the company of Diligente and Sylphe. The three ships were sailing across the Bay of Biscay en route to Martinique when they encountered Comet, under captain Cuthbert Featherstone Daly, on 17 August 1808. Comet soon captured Sylphe but the other two escaped. The next day Capt. Clotworthy Upton in Sybille captured Espiègle.[1]
British service
In British service she carried 14 24-pounder carronades and two 6-pounder guns.[2]
Electra was only commissioned in February 1812 under Cmdr. William Gregory and spent most of her brief career escorting convoys to and from Newfoundland. She did make one capture. On 7 July 1813 Electracaptured a U.S. privateer near Newfoundland after a six-hour chase. She was the 5-gun schooner Growler, with 60 men. Growler, under Captain N. Lindsey, had had a relatively successful cruise having taken the ship Arabella, a brig, the schooner Prince of Wales, and the brig Ann.[3]
Commander Thomas Walbeoff Cecil took command in June 1814 but died of yellow fever in October in the West Indies.[2] (On 28 April 1814, then Lieutenant Cecil of Argo, killed Captain Hassard Stackpole, of Statira, in a duel. Earlier, Cecil had served under Stackpole in Tonnant.[4][5])
Fate
Cecil's replacement, Cmdr. Richard Lewin, paid Electra off in 1815. She was sold at Deptford for ₤800 on 11 July 1816.[2]
References
- Boys, Edward (1831) Narrative of a Captivity and Adventures in France and Flanders between the years MDCCCIII AND MDCCCIX. (London:J.F. Dove).
- Maclay, Edgar Stanton (1899; 2004) A History of American Privateers. p.336.
- [1] Phillips, Michael: Ships of the Old Navy
- Roche, Jean-Michel (2005) Dictionnaire des Bâtiments de la Flotte de Guerre Française de Colbert à nos Jours. (Group Retozel-Maury Millau).
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
