HMS Arab (1798)
Encyclopedia
HMS Arab was a 22-gun post ship
of the Royal Navy
. She was formerly the 18-gun French privateer
Brave, which the British captured in 1798. She served during the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars
until she was sold in 1810.
During her 12-year career she served on three separate stations, and was involved in two international incidents. The first incident occurred under Captain John Perkins
and involved the Danes. The second incident occurred under Captain Lord Cochrane
and involved the Americans. She participated in the capture of Sint Eustatius and Saba. Under Captains Perkins and Maxwell she also took a considerable number of prizes.
around 1797. On 24 April 1798 the 36-gun , under the command of Captain Lawrence William Halsted
, captured Brave off Cape Clear. She was pierced for 22 guns and was carrying eighteen, mixed 12 and 18-pounders. Unusually for a privateer, Brave resisted capture, suffering several men killed and 14 wounded before she surrendered. Phoenix had no casualties and suffered trifling damage to her sails and rigging. Brave had a crew of 160 men and also some 50 English prisoners on board, none of whom were injured. Halsted described Brave as being "a very fine ship, of 600 Tons, is coppered, and sails exceedingly fast."
, where she arrived on 12 May. She was named and registered on 24 July 1798 and fitted out between November 1798 and April 1799. During this period a lower deck, quarterdeck
and a forecastle
were added. She was commissioned as HMS Arab in December 1798 under Commander Peter Spicer.Spicer had been a lieutenant on under Horatio Nelson
at the Battle of Cape St Vincent.
On 5 January 1799 Captain Thomas Bladen Capel
took command; he sailed Arab for Jamaica
23 April. On 23 August, shared with Arab the capture of the American brig Porcupine. Porcupine, of 113 tons and with a crew of eight men, was sailing from New York to Havana with a cargo wine, oil, soap and sundries. Porcupine was condemned but Quebec appealed. During this period Arab detained, on suspicion, the Spanish brig Esperansa, which was sailing from Carthagena with a cargo of cotton, hides, and so forth.
took command in January 1801. In March 1801 Arab, in company with the 18-gun British privateer Experiment, caught and challenged two Danish vessels, the brig
Lougen
, under the command of Captain C.W. Jessen
, and the schooner
Den Aarvaagne. Arab approached the two Danish vessels and, according to Danish accounts, without warning, fired several broadsides at Lougen before the Danish ship was able to return fire. Lougen, which had escaped serious damage, began to return fire steadily. Experiment initially attempted to capture Aarvaagne, but Aarvaagne obeyed orders to stay out of the fight and instead escaped south to Christiansted on St. Croix
with its intelligence on British actions. Experiment then joined Arab in the attack on Lougen, with the two British ships sandwiching the Danish ship. During the engagement, which lasted for over an hour, one of Lougens shots struck the Arabs cathead
and loosed the bower anchor. (Perkin's reported that it was the first shot from Lougen that loosed the bower anchor.) Arabs crew was unable to cut the anchor free, leaving Arab unable to manoeuvre effectively. This allowed Jessen to steer a course that brought him under the protection of the shore batteries and then into St Thomas
.
The Danish government awarded Jessen a presentation sword made of gold, a medal and 400 rixdollar
s (the equivalent of a whole year’s salary) for his actions in escaping from a numerically superior force. Still, Perkins, after having repaired his battle damage, cruised outside the harbour and in a two week period captured more than a dozen Danish and other foreign vessels.
On 13 April Arab captured the Spanish armed schooner Duenda. Perkins then used her and Arab to transport Colonel Blunt and 100 men of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) to the wealthy islands of Sint Eustatius and Saba. On 16 April Perkins and Blunt captured the islands, together with their French garrisons, forty-seven cannon and 338 barrels of gunpowder.
Command of Arab passed to Captain Robert Fanshawe in 1802. Fanshawe took her back to Plymouth, where she spent between August and December being repaired and refitted. After a brief period spent laid up she was brought back into service with the resumption of war with France.
. In his autobiography, Cochrane compared the Arab to a collier
, and his first thoughts on seeing her being repaired at Plymouth were that she would "sail like a haystack". Under Cochrane's command Arab twice collided with Royal Navy ships, first with the 12-gun and then with the storeship . Despite his misgivings, Cochrane still managed to intercept and board an American merchant ship, the Chatham, thereby creating an international incident that led to the consignment of Arab and her commander to fishing fleet protection duties beyond Orkney in the North Sea, an assignment that Cochrane bitterly complained about. Cochrane would later referred to his time in the Arab in the North Sea
and the Downs
as "naval exile in a dreary tub".
of HMS Immortalite
sent , Fleche, Arab and the brigs , , and in pursuit of 22 large schooners flying the Dutch flag. As Maxwell came close to shore he found the water barely deep enough to keep Arab from running aground. Still, the British managed to force three of the schooners to ground on the Banc de Laine near Cap Gris Nez
; their crews ran two others ashore. The British also drove six French gun-vessels on shore. However, the bank off Cape Grinez, and the shot and shells from the right face of its powerful battery, soon compelled the British to move back from the shore. Arab suffered seven wounded and a great deal of damage. Fleche was the closest inshore owing to her light draft of water; she had five men severely wounded and damage to her rigging.
At some point a shell from a shore battery hit Arabs main-mast-head and then fell to the gun deck. At first a seaman named Clorento tried to defuse the shell. While he was doing this master's mate Edward Mansell and two more seamen came up. Together they got the shell into the sea, where it exploded. The next day Arab buried her dead at sea, after which the men on Immortalite cheered Arab. Maxwell wrote to the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's
drawing its attention to the heroism of the four men. Thereafter, the Fund voted Mansell ₤50 and the three other seamen ₤20 each. The fund gave an additional ₤125 for Maxwell to divide between eight other crewmen in graduated amounts.
Subsequently Arab returned to the West Indies. During her time there Lieutenant Edward Dix, as acting captain, temporarily replaced Maxwell for a period of five weeks in 1806. Two days after Dix joined Arab, yellow fever
broke out which the crew of Arab, except Dix and eight others, contracted; 33 men died. Maxwell resumed command and returned to Spithead
in 1807 where Arabs remaining crew were paid off.
and was sold at Deptford
on 20 September 1810.
Post ship
Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail to describe a ship of the sixth-rate that was smaller than a frigate , but by virtue of being a rated ship , had to have as its captain a post captain rather than a lieutenant or commander...
of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. She was formerly the 18-gun French privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
Brave, which the British captured in 1798. She served during the French Revolutionary
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
and Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
until she was sold in 1810.
During her 12-year career she served on three separate stations, and was involved in two international incidents. The first incident occurred under Captain John Perkins
John Perkins (Royal Navy officer)
Captain John Perkins, Royal Navy was a British naval officer.Perkins, nicknamed Jack Punch, was the first black commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. He rose from obscurity to be one of the most successful ship captains of the Georgian navy...
and involved the Danes. The second incident occurred under Captain Lord Cochrane
Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald
Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, 1st Marquess of Maranhão, GCB, ODM , styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831, was a senior British naval flag officer and radical politician....
and involved the Americans. She participated in the capture of Sint Eustatius and Saba. Under Captains Perkins and Maxwell she also took a considerable number of prizes.
Capture
Brave was built in NantesNantes
Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....
around 1797. On 24 April 1798 the 36-gun , under the command of Captain Lawrence William Halsted
Lawrence Halsted
Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....
, captured Brave off Cape Clear. She was pierced for 22 guns and was carrying eighteen, mixed 12 and 18-pounders. Unusually for a privateer, Brave resisted capture, suffering several men killed and 14 wounded before she surrendered. Phoenix had no casualties and suffered trifling damage to her sails and rigging. Brave had a crew of 160 men and also some 50 English prisoners on board, none of whom were injured. Halsted described Brave as being "a very fine ship, of 600 Tons, is coppered, and sails exceedingly fast."
French Revolutionary Wars and Treaty of Amiens
After Phoenix captured Brave, the British brought her to PlymouthPlymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, where she arrived on 12 May. She was named and registered on 24 July 1798 and fitted out between November 1798 and April 1799. During this period a lower deck, quarterdeck
Deck (ship)
A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary deck is the horizontal structure which forms the 'roof' for the hull, which both strengthens the hull and serves as the primary working surface...
and a forecastle
Forecastle
Forecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters...
were added. She was commissioned as HMS Arab in December 1798 under Commander Peter Spicer.Spicer had been a lieutenant on under Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
at the Battle of Cape St Vincent.
On 5 January 1799 Captain Thomas Bladen Capel
Thomas Bladen Capel
Admiral Sir Thomas Bladen Capel GCB RN was an officer in the British Royal Navy whose distinguished service in the French Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 earned him rapid promotion and great acclaim both in and out of the Navy...
took command; he sailed Arab for Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
23 April. On 23 August, shared with Arab the capture of the American brig Porcupine. Porcupine, of 113 tons and with a crew of eight men, was sailing from New York to Havana with a cargo wine, oil, soap and sundries. Porcupine was condemned but Quebec appealed. During this period Arab detained, on suspicion, the Spanish brig Esperansa, which was sailing from Carthagena with a cargo of cotton, hides, and so forth.
John Perkins
Captain John Perkins (Jack Punch)John Perkins (Royal Navy officer)
Captain John Perkins, Royal Navy was a British naval officer.Perkins, nicknamed Jack Punch, was the first black commissioned officer in the Royal Navy. He rose from obscurity to be one of the most successful ship captains of the Georgian navy...
took command in January 1801. In March 1801 Arab, in company with the 18-gun British privateer Experiment, caught and challenged two Danish vessels, the brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
Lougen
HDMS Lougen (1791)
The first Lougen was a brig of 18 guns, launched in 1791. She was active protecting Danish merchant shipping and suppressing pirates in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean...
, under the command of Captain C.W. Jessen
Carl Wilhelm Jessen
This article contains material translated from the Danish article: Carl Wilhelm JessenCarl Wilhelm Jessen was a Danish naval officer and Governor of St Thomas in the Danish West Indies.-Career:...
, and the schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
Den Aarvaagne. Arab approached the two Danish vessels and, according to Danish accounts, without warning, fired several broadsides at Lougen before the Danish ship was able to return fire. Lougen, which had escaped serious damage, began to return fire steadily. Experiment initially attempted to capture Aarvaagne, but Aarvaagne obeyed orders to stay out of the fight and instead escaped south to Christiansted on St. Croix
Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Formerly the Danish West Indies, they were sold to the United States by Denmark in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies of...
with its intelligence on British actions. Experiment then joined Arab in the attack on Lougen, with the two British ships sandwiching the Danish ship. During the engagement, which lasted for over an hour, one of Lougens shots struck the Arabs cathead
Cathead
A cathead is a large wooden beam located on either bow of a sailing ship, and angled outward at roughly 45 degrees. The beam is used to support the ship's anchor when raising it or lowering it , and for carrying the anchor on its stock-end when suspended outside the ship's side...
and loosed the bower anchor. (Perkin's reported that it was the first shot from Lougen that loosed the bower anchor.) Arabs crew was unable to cut the anchor free, leaving Arab unable to manoeuvre effectively. This allowed Jessen to steer a course that brought him under the protection of the shore batteries and then into St Thomas
Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint Thomas is an island in the Caribbean Sea and with the islands of Saint John, Saint Croix, and Water Island a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located on the island is the territorial capital and port of...
.
The Danish government awarded Jessen a presentation sword made of gold, a medal and 400 rixdollar
Rixdollar
Rixdollar is the English term for silver coinage used throughout the European continent .The same term was also used of currency in Cape Colony and Ceylon. However, the Rixdollar only existed as a coin in Ceylon. Unissued remainder banknotes for the Cape of Good Hope denominated in Rixdollars...
s (the equivalent of a whole year’s salary) for his actions in escaping from a numerically superior force. Still, Perkins, after having repaired his battle damage, cruised outside the harbour and in a two week period captured more than a dozen Danish and other foreign vessels.
On 13 April Arab captured the Spanish armed schooner Duenda. Perkins then used her and Arab to transport Colonel Blunt and 100 men of the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) to the wealthy islands of Sint Eustatius and Saba. On 16 April Perkins and Blunt captured the islands, together with their French garrisons, forty-seven cannon and 338 barrels of gunpowder.
Command of Arab passed to Captain Robert Fanshawe in 1802. Fanshawe took her back to Plymouth, where she spent between August and December being repaired and refitted. After a brief period spent laid up she was brought back into service with the resumption of war with France.
Cochrane
Arab was recommissioned in October 1803 under Captain Lord Cochrane, who had been assigned to Arab by Earl St VincentJohn Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent
Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent GCB, PC was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom...
. In his autobiography, Cochrane compared the Arab to a collier
Collier (ship type)
Collier is a historical term used to describe a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially for naval use by coal-fired warships. In the late 18th century a number of wooden-hulled sailing colliers gained fame after being adapted for use in voyages of exploration in the South Pacific, for...
, and his first thoughts on seeing her being repaired at Plymouth were that she would "sail like a haystack". Under Cochrane's command Arab twice collided with Royal Navy ships, first with the 12-gun and then with the storeship . Despite his misgivings, Cochrane still managed to intercept and board an American merchant ship, the Chatham, thereby creating an international incident that led to the consignment of Arab and her commander to fishing fleet protection duties beyond Orkney in the North Sea, an assignment that Cochrane bitterly complained about. Cochrane would later referred to his time in the Arab in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and the Downs
The Downs
The Downs are a roadstead or area of sea in the southern North Sea near the English Channel off the east Kent coast, between the North and the South Foreland in southern England. In 1639 the Battle of the Downs took place here, when the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet which had sought refuge...
as "naval exile in a dreary tub".
Maxwell
Captain Keith Maxwell replaced Cochrane in 1805, and sailed Arab to serve with the squadron off Boulogne. On 18 July the British spotted the French Boulogne flotilla sailing along the shore. Captain Edward OwenEdward Owen (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen GCB GCH was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet. He was the son of Captain William Owen and elder brother of Vice-Admiral William Fitzwilliam Owen....
of HMS Immortalite
French frigate Immortalité (1795)
The Immortalité was a Romaine class frigate of the French Navy.She took part in the Expédition d'Irlande, and was captured shortly after the Battle of Tory Island by HMS Fisgard...
sent , Fleche, Arab and the brigs , , and in pursuit of 22 large schooners flying the Dutch flag. As Maxwell came close to shore he found the water barely deep enough to keep Arab from running aground. Still, the British managed to force three of the schooners to ground on the Banc de Laine near Cap Gris Nez
Cap Gris Nez
Cap Gris Nez is a cape on the Côte d'Opale in the Pas-de-Calais département in northern France....
; their crews ran two others ashore. The British also drove six French gun-vessels on shore. However, the bank off Cape Grinez, and the shot and shells from the right face of its powerful battery, soon compelled the British to move back from the shore. Arab suffered seven wounded and a great deal of damage. Fleche was the closest inshore owing to her light draft of water; she had five men severely wounded and damage to her rigging.
At some point a shell from a shore battery hit Arabs main-mast-head and then fell to the gun deck. At first a seaman named Clorento tried to defuse the shell. While he was doing this master's mate Edward Mansell and two more seamen came up. Together they got the shell into the sea, where it exploded. The next day Arab buried her dead at sea, after which the men on Immortalite cheered Arab. Maxwell wrote to the Patriotic Fund at Lloyd's
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...
drawing its attention to the heroism of the four men. Thereafter, the Fund voted Mansell ₤50 and the three other seamen ₤20 each. The fund gave an additional ₤125 for Maxwell to divide between eight other crewmen in graduated amounts.
Subsequently Arab returned to the West Indies. During her time there Lieutenant Edward Dix, as acting captain, temporarily replaced Maxwell for a period of five weeks in 1806. Two days after Dix joined Arab, yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
broke out which the crew of Arab, except Dix and eight others, contracted; 33 men died. Maxwell resumed command and returned to Spithead
Spithead
Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds, except those from the southeast...
in 1807 where Arabs remaining crew were paid off.
Fate
Arab was placed in ordinary at WoolwichWoolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
and was sold at Deptford
Deptford
Deptford is a district of south London, England, located on the south bank of the River Thames. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th century to the late 19th was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards.Deptford and the docks are...
on 20 September 1810.