HMS Landrail was a Cuckoo-class schooner

Cuckoo class schooner

The Cuckoo class was a class of twelve 4-gun schooners of the Royal Navy, built by contract in English shipyards during the Napoleonic War. They followed the design of the Bermuda-designed and built Ballahoo-class schooners, and more particularly, that of Haddock. The Admiralty ordered all twelve...

 built by Thomas Sutton at Ringmore Teignmouth

Teignmouth

Teignmouth is a town and civil parish in Teignbridge in the English county of Devon, situated on the north bank of the estuary mouth of the River Teign about 14 miles south of Exeter. It has a population of 14,413. In 1690, it was the last place in England to be invaded by a foreign power...

. Like all her class she carried four 12-pounder carronade

Carronade

The carronade was a short smoothbore, cast iron cannon, developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s. Its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range anti-ship and anti-crew weapon...

s and had a crew of 20. She had a relatively uneventful career during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

 until 1814 when she was taken in a notable action, and then retaken. She was sold in approximately 1818.

Service

The first mention of her service occurred in 1812 when she operated in the Channel under the command of Lieutenant John Hill. On the afternoon of 18 December 1812 Landrail chased the French 40-gun frigate Gloire in company with the 18-gun ship-sloop Albacore, the 12-gun schooner Pickle

HMS Eclair (1801)

HMS Eclair was a French schooner captured in 1801. The British took her into service under her French name and armed her with twelve 12-pounder carronades. In 1804 she engaged in a noteworthy, albeit indecisive single ship action with the 22-gun French privateer Grande Decide. In 1809 she was...

 and the 12-gun brig-sloop . Albacore and Pickle had found themselves close to the much larger French ship off The Lizard

The Lizard

The Lizard is a peninsula in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The most southerly point of the British mainland is near Lizard Point at ....

 at daybreak in light winds. In the exchange of fire Albacore suffered one man killed and six or seven wounded before she pulled back. Borer and Landrail closed to assist, but Gloire managed to outrun her pursuers. In the engagement Landrail did not actually fire her guns. As James put it, “for the Landrail to have fired her 12-pounders would have been a farce.”

In 1813 Landrail performed a number of duties, including accompanying a convoy to the Baltic and carrying dispatches to Heligoland

Heligoland

Heligoland is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands are located in the Heligoland Bight in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea...

. On 17 June Landrail captured the Danish sloop Resolutionen, C. P. Albech, Master. Then some months later, on 13 November, she captured the Danish vessel Hoffnung.

On 6 January 1814 Landrail arrived at the Isles of Scilly

Isles of Scilly

The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...

 where she was put under quarantine. She brought with her the ship Duck, bound from Newfoundland to Portugal, which also carried the crews of a number of merchant vessels that two French frigates had captured. On 22 March she arrived at Falmouth from Bordeaux with a French officer with dispatches. On 21 June Lieutenant Robert Daniel Lancaster took command.

Capture and recapture

On 12 July Landrail was in the Channel on her way to Gibraltar with dispatches when she encountered the American privateer Syren under Captain J.D. Daniels. Syren carried seven cannons, one long 12 on a travelling (pivoting) carriage, four long 6-pounders and two 18-pounder carronades, and a crew of 50 men.Most accounts give Syren’s crew as numbering 75-80 men. However Maclay (1899, p.472.) gives it as 50, which is more consistent with her having sent in six prizes, most of which would have required a prize crew. This gave her a broadside of 42 pounds, compared to Landrail s 24 pounds, and a crew two and a half times larger.

Syren had had a successful cruise, capturing six British vessels, and she gave chase. Lancaster attempted to escape, keeping up a running fight of a little over an hour, and a close action of 40 minutes. During the action, one of Landrails engaged carronades was disabled. She turned, so as to be able to use the two on her other broadside. Landrail and Syren ended up close together with the muzzles of their guns touching. Eventually Landrail, out of small-arms ammunition, with the breechings of her carronades carried away, struck. She had suffered five, or seven men wounded. Her sails were riddled with shot-holes and her hull had taken many hits. Syren had three men killed and 15 wounded. Some American reports give the Syren’s losses as only three men wounded.

On 28 August, the Cruizer-class brig-sloop

Cruizer class brig-sloop

The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging...

 , under the command of Lieutenant Richard Crawford (acting Commander), recaptured Landrail while she was on her way to the United States. Wasp took Landrail into Halifax

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

. However, the officers and crew of Landrail remained in captivity in the US.

Syren returned to the United States but as she approached the Delaware River

Delaware River

The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...

 the British blockading ships gave chase. To escape the boats of and , on 16 November Syren ran ashore under Cape May

Cape May

Cape May is a peninsula and island ; the southern tip of the island is the southernmost point of the state of New Jersey, United States. It runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean...

. Her crew set her on fire before making their escape.

In late 1814 or early 1815, while on the Halifax station under Lieutenant (Gustavus) Robert Rochfort, Landrail successfully beat off a force of five American privateers. The American vessels were the 10-gun Charles Stewart of Boston, the 4-gun Cumberland of Portland, the 4-gun Fame of Thomastown, the sloop Jefferson of Salem, and a schooner, name and armament unknown.Snider (1928), p.229. Landrail was on her way to join a convoy to Castine, Maine, then in British possession. The fight lasted some two hours though there is no report of casualties on Landrail. Reportedly, the American privateers did suffer a number of killed and wounded.

Postscript

Landrail’s flag went to the United States Naval Academy

United States Naval Academy

The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...

 at Annapolis where it hangs with a number of other captured flags.

Coincidence

On 11 July 1896, almost exactly 92 years after the first Landrails capture by Syren, the torpedo gunboat HMS Landrail rammed and sank the clipper merchant ship Siren. The Siren was a large four-masted vessel carrying a cargo of wool and tallow from Sydney to Britain. The accident occurred on a clear night, some thirty miles from Portland Bill

Portland Bill

Portland Bill is a narrow promontory of Portland stone, which forms the most southerly part of Isle of Portland, and therefore also the county of Dorset, England....

. There were no lives lost on either vessel and Landrail herself suffered trifling damage. The owners of the Siren put their loss at £86,529.