HMS Scorpion (1803)

Career (UK)
Name:	HMS Scorpion
Ordered:	27 November 1802
Builder:	John King, Dover
Laid down:	January 1803
Launched:	17 October 1803
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal clasps "SCORPION 31 MARCH 1804" "SCORPION 12 JANY. 1810" "GUADALOUPE"
Fate:	Sold 3 February 1819
General characteristics
Type:	Cruizer-class brig-sloop
Tonnage:	383 86/94 bm
Length:	99 ft 11.5 in (30.467 m) (overall) 77 ft 2 in (23.5 m) (keel)
Beam:	30 ft 7 in (9.32 m)
Draught:	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) (unladen) 11 ft 0 in (3.35 m) (laden)
Depth of hold:	12 ft 9 in (3.89 m)
Sail plan:	Brig
Complement:	121
Armament:	18 guns: 16 x 32-pounder carronades 2 x 6-pounder bow guns

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Scorpion.

HMS Scorpion was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1803. She was the first of the class to be built since the launching of Cruizer in 1797. Scorpion had a long and active career during the Napoleonic Wars, earning her crews three clasps to the Naval General Service Medal when the Admiralty authorized it in 1847, two for single-ship actions. She also took a number of prizes. Scorpion was sold in 1819.

Service history

Scorpion was commissioned in November 1803 under Commander George Nicholas Hardinge for the Channel and the Downs. Her first medal action took place between 28 March and 3 April.

Capture of the brig Atalante

On 25 March 1804 Edward Thornborough detached Scorpion to cruise off the Vlie Passage at the entrance to the Texel and watch two Dutch national brigs at anchor there. On 31 March Scorpion fell in with the 14-gun ship-sloop Beaver, Commander Charles Pelly (or Pelley) commanding, which was sailing to her station; the two captains decided to join forces to cut out one of the brigs.

That night Hardinge led five boats with 60 officers and men, including Pelly, to attack the nearest brig, Atalante. Hardinge was first on deck, having climbed through the boarding nets. The decks were slippery after rain and he fell as he tackled a mate of the watch but he recovered and killed the mate. Hardinge then engaged the Dutch captain, who disarmed Hardinge; Woodward Williams, Scorpion's master, saved him. Hardinge called on the Dutch captain to surrender, but he would not and kept on fighting, forcing the British to kill him, which distressed Hardinge greatly as he admired the captain’s courage.

The Dutch finally surrendered after having lost three men killed, including their captain, and eleven officers and men wounded. All the British casualties were Scorpion's; she had five wounded, including Williams and Lieutenant Buckland Bluett. The British put forty of the Dutch into irons below deck and prepared to capture the other brig. However, at daybreak they saw that she had moved off and was too far away.

A three day gale delayed the British in their attempt to bring the Atalante out. She proved to be larger than Scorpion. She mounted sixteen long 12-pounders and had had 76 men on board. The British sailed Atalante back to Britain but did not take her into service.

On 2 May Hardinge had Atalante's captain buried with full military honours. He freed the Dutch officers for the ceremony and hoisted the Dutch colours.

Hardinge was promoted to post-captain and given the command of Proselyte. The Patriotic Society awarded him a sword worth 100 guineas. Bluett was promoted to Commander and the command of Wasp; he also was the recipient of a sword worth 50 guineas. Lieutenant William Shields also received a sword worth 50 guineas. The Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasps "SCORPION 31 MARCH 1804" and "BEAVER 31 MARCH 1804".

Capture of the privateer Eer

Commander Philip Carteret replaced Hardinge as captain of Scorpion. A year later, on 11 April 1805, Scorpion, in company with the Hired Armed Ships Providence and Thames, captured the Dutch 12-gun privateer Eer (aka De Eer, D'Eer or Honneur). She was carrying 1000 stands of arms, two 12-pounder field pieces, two mortars, uniforms for 1000 men, tents, and the like. She was also carrying M. Jean Saint-Faust who was traveling to Curaçao to assume command of the naval forces of the Batavian Republic.

Willaumez's squadron and protection of trade off St Kitts

Carteret received a promotion to post-captain on 22 Jan 1806, but Scorpion had just sailed to the Leeward Islands station. While there he shadowed Admiral Willaumez's squadron, coming close enough at one point to draw several cannon shots.

In July 1806 Carteret helped save sixty-five deeply laden merchantmen at St. Kitts from destruction. A letter from Carteret warned Captain Kenneth McKenzie of Carysfort that a French squadron under Willaumez had arrived at Martinique. Carysfort ran to leeward with her charges and escaped the enemy who had sailed from Fort Royal on 1 July. When the French reached St. Kitts, they only succeeded in capturing 7 merchantmen that had missed the convoy; the fort on Brimstone Hill and a battery on the beach protected nine others.

Commander Francis Stanfell was appointed to command Scorpion on Carteret's promotion. However, he did not succeed in catching up with her until 1807. When he got to Barbados he found out that she had sailed to the North America station. After waiting some month in Barbados he received news that Scorpion was back at Plymouth and he sailed to join her.

Action against privateers on the Home Station

On 3 January 1807 Scorpion, still under the command of Carteret, was chasing a cutter some 15 miles south of The Lizard when Pickle came up and closed with the enemy. After an exchange of fire Pickle's people boarded and captured the vessel, which turned out to be the privateer Favorite, of 14 guns and 70 men under the command of E. J. Boutruche. She was only two months old and had left Cherbourg two days before.

Out of her crew of 70 men, Favorite had lost one man killed and two wounded. Pickle had suffered two men severely wounded and one man slightly wounded. When Scorpion caught up she took off 69 prisoners who she then landed at Falmouth.

Later that year Scorpion captured three French privateers while on the Home station. On 17 February it was the Bougainville, some 12 miles south-west of the Isles of Scilly. She had 16 guns and 93 men and was 23 days out of St. Malo. Capturing her took a long chase and a 45 minute running fight during which the privateer lost several of crew killed; Scorpion had no casualties.

Then on 21 November it was the turn of Glaneuse to fall to Scorpion, by this time under the command of Stanfell. She was about 100 miles south of Cape Clear disguised as a merchantman when in the evening she succeeded in enticing the French privateer ketch Glaneuse to come close. By the time the privateer captain, Joseph Guinian, realised his mistake he was within pistol-shot and it was too late. Glaneuse carried 16 guns and 80 men. She was a new vessel on her first cruise from St Malo and had already taken two vessels, one being the ship Alfred bound for Poole from Newfoundland.

Lastly, on 3 December it was Glaneur's turn. Information Stanfell obtained from Glaneuse enabled him to capture the privateer ketch Glaneur after a chase of 12 hours. She was under the command of Jaquel Fabre and had 10 guns and a crew of 60 men. She was 6 days out of Brest, having taken the brig Horatio, master David Mill, from London to Mogadore, and the Portuguese Gloria, from Oporto to London. Glaneur had been preying on shipping for two years and although British vessels had repeatedly chased her, she had always managed to escape through superior sailing.

Boat actions on the Leeward Islands station

Scorpion sailed to the Leeward Islands in 1807 and then returned home in 1808. She made at least one cruise to the coast of Portugal. She sailed again for the Leeward Island on 3 April 1809.

At the end of 1809 she formed part of the squadron off Guadeloupe under Captain Volant Vashon Ballard of Blonde . On 25 September the boats of Blonde, Facon and Scorpion set off in pursuit of an enemy vessel making for Basse-Terre. At their approach their quarry ran herself ashore in a bay between two batteries. Despite the crossfire from the batteries and small arms fire from men on the beach, the boat parties landed. However, they found it impossible to get the French vessel off, and they left her bilged. British casualties amounted to two men wounded from Blonde, one who lost an arm and the other who later died.

On 15 December Scorpion sailed from Basse-terre with a small squadron in search of a French squadron reported to be in the area. In subsequent days two sloops and two frigates joined the squadron. One of the sloops was Ringdove, a sister-ship to Scorpion. Though a part of the squadron, Scorpion apparently missed out on the Action of 17 December 1809 in which a British squadron, first under Vashon Ballard and then under Captain Samuel James Ballard, destroyed two French frigates.

Capture of the brig Oreste

On the night of 11 January 1810, Captain Vollant Ballard directed Stanfell to attempt to cut out a French national brig from her anchorage off Basse-Terre. When he stood close in, a square-rigged vessel was seen clearing the north point of the bay so he went off in pursuit. During the chase the wind fell to a near calm and Scorpion's crew had to use the sweeps for four hours before she could close within pistol-shot of the French quarry. The action lasted for two to two-and-a-half hours before the enemy, which had been dismasted, struck her colours. Scorpion had four men wounded during the action; the French losses were two killed and ten wounded.

The captured vessel turned out to be the brig Oreste of fourteen 24-pounder carronades and two long 12-pounders with a crew of 110 men. She was under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau Monnier and was bound for France with a lieutenant-colonel and two other army officers and the captains and other officers from two French frigates as passengers.

The Royal Navy took Oreste into service as Wellington. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "SCORPION 12 JANY. 1810" to the survivors of the action.

Guadeloupe

Scorpion took part in the attack on Guadeloupe at the end of January 1810. Stanfell and a detachment of seamen served ashore with the 2nd division of the army under Brigadier General Harcourt. The French capitulated on 6 February and Scorpion then left for England on 10 February with Admiral Alexander Cochrane’s dispatches; Stanfell arrived at the Admiralty Office on 15 March. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "GUADALOUPE".

Late career

Commander the Honorable John Gore took command in April 1810 and returned Scorpion to the Leeward Islands. While she was ailing to the windward of the island of Martinique, a heavy squall struck her. The force was so great that it broke some of her masts and swept three seamen swept overboard. On seeing them struggling in the water, Gore jumped overboard and succeeded in rescuing two of them; the third man was lost in the tremendous seas.

Ironically, Gore drowned on 18 February 1812, off the coast of Africa. A seaman had fallen overboard and Gore again jumped in to save the man. The ship's boats attempted to save him but one swamped before it could come to the rescue, and he capsized a second trying to climb in. The cutter was able to rescue the men from the second boat, but Gore and the seaman he had tried to save were already lost.

Commander Robert Giles took command on 12 March 1812 on the Leeward Islands station. On 8 May 1813 Scorpion sailed with a convoy to England that reached Plymouth on 28 June.

Fate

Scorpion was laid up at Sheerness in July 1813. She was sold there to G.F. Young for £1,100 on 3 February 1819.

References

• Davison, Sarah (Lady Nicholas) (1846) The cairn: a gathering of precious stones from many hands. (London, G. Bell).
• Giffard, Edward (1852) Deeds of naval daring; or, anecdotes of the British navy. (London: John Murray).
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005) Dictionnaire des Bâtiments de la Flotte de Guerre Française de Colbert à nos Jours. (Group Retozel-Maury Millau).
• Vere, Langford Oliver (1919/2005) Caribbeana: being miscellaneous papers relating to the history, genealogy, topography, and antiquities of the British West Indies. (Toronto, Ont.: CanDoo Creative Pub.).
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.