HMS Foxhound (1806)
HMS Foxhound (1806) was an 18-gun Cruizer class brig-sloop built by King at Dover and launched in 1806. Cmdr. Pitt Burnaby Greene commissioned her in May 1807.
On 17 March 1809, Foxhound was one of a fleet of 60 vessels of various kinds, under Admiral Lord Gambier, that anchored off Basque Roads to attack the French fleet lying within. The 15 French vessels, commanded by Vice-Ad. Zacharie Allemand, lay behind a boom protected by 30 guns. On 11 April, 12 fireships, accompanied by bomb vessels and escorted by men-of-war, all under the command of Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane, broke the boom under a heavy fire. Foxhound covered the bomb Aetna near the Île-d'Aix, which was making a diversionary attack. The British main attack captured two French vessels and two were blown up, all with a total loss to the British of only eight men killed and 24 wounded. Still, Cochrane was highly critical of Gambier’s failure to act more aggressively.
Two of Foxhound’s sister ships, Doterel and Beagle were also present at the Battle of the Basque Roads. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the then still surviving participants in the battle the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp “BASQUE ROADS 1809”.
While under the command of Cmdr. James MacKenzie, Foxhound was returning from Halifax when she foundered in the Atlantic on 31 August 1809 with the loss of all on board.[1] The vessels in company were unable to render any assistance.[2]
References
- Michael Phillips’ Ships of the Old Navy
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell). ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
- Grocott, Terence (1997), Shipwrecks of the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, Chatham, ISBN 1-86176-030-2
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
