HMS Melampus was a 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...

 fifth-rate

Fifth-rate

In Britain's Royal Navy during the classic age of fighting sail, a fifth rate was the penultimate class of warships in a hierarchal system of six "ratings" based on size and firepower.-Rating:...

 frigate that 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...

. She captured numerous prizes before she was sold in 1815.

Design and construction

The Admiralty ordered Melampus James Martin Hillhouse

Hilhouse

Hilhouse was a shipbuilder in Bristol, England who built merchantman and men-of-war during the 18th and 19th centuries...

, of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

 on 17 April 1782 as a 38-gun fifth rate. After she had been laid down in December 1793, the Admiralty reduced her armament to 36 guns on 11 January 1783, as captains of earlier 38 gun frigates had complained that the extra guns made the upper gundeck too cramped. Melampus was launched on 8 June 1785, and commissioned between 3 July and 8 September 1785 for ordinary

Reserve fleet

A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed, and thus partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; an equivalent expression in unofficial modern U.S....

 at Plymouth

Plymouth

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...

. She was again commissioned between May and 2 July 1790 for Channel service. She had cost £20,785 13s

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

 0d to build, with a further £2,985 being spent in 1790 for fitting out.

Early service

Her first captain following her May 1790 commissioning was Charles M. Pole. Melampus was paid off again in November 1790, but by 1793 she had been moved to Plymouth, where she was refitted between March and June for £4,726.

French Revolutionary Wars

She recommissioned in April 1793 under the command of Isaac Coffin

Sir Isaac Coffin, 1st Baronet

Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin, 1st Baronet GCH was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars....

, and by April the following year she was under Captain Thomas Wells, serving in Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron. During this time Melampus participated in the Action of 23 April 1794

Action of 23 April 1794

The Action of 23 April 1794 took place between a British squadron of five frigates under the command of Sir John Borlase Warren and three frigates and a corvette under the command of Chef d'escadre F. Desgarceaux during the French Revolutionary Wars. Three of the French ships were captured.-The...

, during which the British took three vessels, Engageante

French frigate Engageante (1766)

Engageante was a 26-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The British captured her in 1794 and converted her to a hospital ship. She served as a hospital ship until she was broken up in 1811.-French service:...

, Pomone

French frigate Pomone (1787)

Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy built in 1783. The British captured her, along with Babet and Engageante, off the Île de Batz during the Action of 23 April 1794....

, and . Melampus had five men killed and five wounded.

She came under the command of Sir Richard Strachan in September 1794 and was recommissioned in April 1795. She was part of Strachan's force that attacked and destroyed a French convoy in Cartaret Bay on 9 May 1795. The British squadron spotted a convoy of 13 vessels and immediately gave chase. Twelve of the quarry escaped and got close to the shore where a small shore battery, their own armed escorts, and a brig and a lugger offered some protection. Strachan sent in the boats from the vessels in his squadron while Melampus and the ships provided covering fire. The French crews abandoned their vessels at the approach of the British and eventually the shore battery also stopped firing. The cutting out party retrieved all the vessels, save a small sloop, which was hard ashore and which they burnt. Melampus had eight men wounded and in all the British lost one man killed and 14 wounded. They captured a gun brig and a gun lugger, each armed with three 18-pounder guns. They also captured the convoy, which consisted of: Prosperitte (80 tons and carrying cordage), Montagne (200 tons and carrying timber, lead and tin plates), Catharine (200 tons and carrying ship timber), Hyrondelle (220 tons and carrying ship timber and pitch), Contente (250 tons, carrying powder), Nymphe (120 tons carrying fire wood), Bonne-Union (150 tons), Fantazie (45 tons carrying coals), Alexandre (397 and carrying ship timber, cordage, hemp and cannon), and Petit Neptune (113 tons and carrying ship timber). Hyrondelle and Fantazie are later named as Crachefeu and Eclair.

On 3 July that year Melampus and HMS Hebe intercepted a convoy of 13 vessels off St Malo. Melampus captured and armed brig and Hebe captured six merchant vessels. The brig of war was armed with four 24-pounders and had a crew of 60 men. Later she was identified as the Vésuve. The convoy had been on its way from Île-de-Bréhat

Île-de-Bréhat

Île-de-Bréhat is an island located near Paimpol, a mile off the northern coast of Brittany. Administratively, it is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in northwestern France....

 to Brest

Brest, France

Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...

. and the cutter  shared in the prize and head money.

Melampus came under the command of Captain Graham Moore

Graham Moore

Admiral Sir Graham Moore, GCB, GCMG was a British sailor and a career officer in the Royal Navy. He was the younger brother of General Sir John Moore.-Naval career:...

 in August 1796. On 13 November she Minerva

HMS Minerva (1780)

HMS Minerva was a 38-gun fifth-rate Royal Navy frigate. The first of four Minerva-class frigates, she was launched on 3 June 1780, and commissioned soon thereafter. In 1798 she was renamed Pallas and employed as a troopship...

 drove a French navy corvette ashore near Barfleur

Barfleur

Barfleur is a commune in the Manche department in the Basse-Normandie region in north-western France.-Middle Ages:In the Middle Ages Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation for England....

. However the British were not able to get close enough to assure her destruction. Then Melampus and captured another corvette, Etna. Etna was armed with eighteen 12-pounder guns and had a crew of 137 men under the command of Citizen Joseph La Coudrais. The prisoners stated that both corvettes were carrying military and naval stores and that the corvette that had run ashore was the Etonnant, of eighteen 18-pounder guns. Both were new ships on their first cruise.

Melampus was also active in operations against 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...

s. On 5 October 1797 she captured the French privateer lugger Rayon off the Casquets

Casquets

Les Casquets or Casquets is a group of rocks 13 km northwest of Alderney and are part of an underwater sandstone ridge. Other parts which emerge above the water are the islets of Burhou and Ortac. Little vegetation grows on them...

 after a chase of four hours. Rayon was armed with six carriage guns and eight coehorn

Coehorn

A Coehorn was a portable mortar developed in the Netherlands by Menno van Coehoorn in 1674 and in use from the seventeenth to the mid nineteenth centuries. Unlike larger, heavier mortars, the Coehorn was designed to be movable by as few as four men...

s, and had a crew of 54 men under the command of Jean Baptiste Leonard Gosselin. She had sailed from Cherburg ten hours earlier intending to cruise between the Lizard and Cape Clear for six weeks.

Melampus was in company with when they captured the Belliqueux, off the Irish coast on 16 January 1798. She was originally a corvette, but was now a privateer. Belliqueux was pierced for 20 cannon but was armed with fourteen 8-pounder guns and four carronades, and had a crew of 120 men. She was out of St. Malo, and on 11 January had captured
His Majesty's packet Prince Ernest, which had been sailing from Tortola. The captain of the packet and all but four of her crew were on board Belliqueux.

A few days later, on 23 January, Melampus captured the Volage, after a short, intense engagement. She was a corvette that the French navy had lent to merchants. She was armed with twenty 9-pounder guns and two 18-pounders, and had a crew of 195 men under the command of Citizen
Delageneaux, Captain of a Frigate. In the engagement Melampus had two men mortally wounded and three men dangerously wounded; Volage had four men killed and eight wounded. Volage was three weeks out of Nantes, provisioned for a three-month cruise. By the time of her capture, Vollage had herself only captured an American ship and destroyed an English brig sailing from Belfast to Lisbon with coal. The Captain and all the officers on Volage were officers in the French navy, but on a three-month leave.

Melampus was present at the Battle of Tory Island

Battle of Tory Island

The Battle of Tory Island, was a naval action of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought on 12 October 1798 between French and British squadrons off the northwest coast of Donegal, then in the Kingdom of Ireland...

 in October that year, fighting in the main action and then subsequently capturing the French frigate Résolue

French frigate Résolue (1778)

Résolue was an Iphigénie-class 32-gun frigate of the French Navy.-French service:On 19 March 1779, Résolue captured a British fort in Senegal....

 in a night action two days later. Together with Ethalion

HMS Ethalion (1797)

HMS Ethalion was a 38-gun Artois-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built by Joseph Graham of Harwich and launched on 14 March 1797...

 she captured the 40-gun Bellone

French frigate Bellone (1779)

The Bellone was an Iphigénie-class 32-gun frigate of the French Navy. She was one of the French ships with a copper-covered hull.In 1782, she fought against HMS Coventry...

, which the Royal Navy took into service.

In mid-March 1799 Melampus captured the French privateer Mercure, which the Admiralty took into service as . Mercure was armed with 16 guns and had a crew of 103 men. She was from Saint Malo and was returning to her home port after having had a successful cruise in the Channel.

On 14 April Melampus pursued another French privateer for 25 hours before she was able to capture her quarry. The privateer was the brig Papillon, which was armed with ten 9-pounder guns and four 36-pounder carronades and had a crew of 123 men.

On 18 April Melampus was in pursuit of a privateer when the privateer capsized and sank before Melampus could reach her. The captain of Papillon stated that the privateer was the Nantois, of fourteen 6 and 12-pounder guns, and a crew of 150 men. Furthermore, she had on board the master and part of the crew of the brig Echo, which she had captured earlier.

Melampus was then assigned to the Caribbean, sailing 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...

 in March 1800. There she came under the command of Captain Thomas Gosselin in November 1801 before being paid off in June 1802.

Napoleonic Wars

Melampus returned to England, and underwent a large repair 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...

 between August 1803 and October 1804. She was recommissioned in August 1804 under the command of Captain Stephen Poyntz, and commenced cruises off the French coast.

On 25 June 1805 had been chasing a French frigate privateer for some twelve hours when Melampus and came up and cut-off the quarry, forcing her to surrender. She was the Valiant (or Vaillant), of Bordeaux. She was armed with twenty-four 18-pounder guns on her main deck and six 6-pounders, which she threw overboard while Loire was pursuing her. She had a crew of 240 men. She had been out for 20 days on a four-month cruise but had only captured the Halifax packet Lord Charles Spencer.

On 13 July 1805 she captured the Spanish privateer Hydra at sea. Hydra was pierced for 30 cannons and carried twenty-two 9-pounder guns on her main deck, and six 6-pounders on her quarterdeck. She had a crew of 192 men, and she lost three men killed and several men wounded before she struck. Melampus captured her on the 17th day of a four-month cruise and she had not yet captured any British vessels.

Melampus was present, whilst serving as part of a squadron under her old commander Sir Richard Strachan, at the destruction of the 74-gun French ship Impétueux on 14 September 1806.

In September 1807 Captain Edward Hawker took over command, sailing her to North America in 1808. He then took her to the Leeward Islands

Leeward Islands

The Leeward Islands are a group of islands in the West Indies. They are the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. As a group they start east of Puerto Rico and reach southward to Dominica. They are situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean...

 in 1809.

On 16 January 1809 Melampus captured the French navy brig Colibri off Barbuda

Barbuda

Barbuda is an island in the Eastern Caribbean, and forms part of the state of Antigua and Barbuda. It has a population of about 1,500, most of whom live in the town of Codrington.-Location:...

, after her captain had the "temerity" to put up a fight as Melampus was sailing alongside. She was armed with fourteen 24-pounder carronades and two 8-pounder guns, had a crew of 92 men, under the command of Mons. Deslandes, Lieutenant de Vaisseau. In the engagement, Colibri had three men killed and 11 wounded before she struck. She was a new vessel and was sailing from Cherburg with a cargo of 570 barrels of flour and a great quantity of gunpowder intended for the relief of to San Domingo. On her way she had captured and sunk two British brigs that had been sailing from Newfoundland to Lisbon, the Hannibal and the Priscilla, both of Dartmouth. The Royal Navy took her into service as

On 14 December Melampus captured the French brig corvette Bearnais after pursuing her for 28 hours. Bearnais was armed with sixteen 24-pounder carronades and had a crew of 109 men (including 30 soldiers), under the command of Monsieur Montbazen, Lieutenant de Vaiffeau. She fought before striking with the result that she had one man killed and and some men wounded, and she wounded two men on Melampus. Bearnais was a new vessel and was sailing from Bayonne to Guadeloupe with a cargo of flour and military stores, some of which she had thrown overboard during the pursuit. The royal Navy took her into service as .

Between January and February 1810, Melampus was involved in the capture of Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe

Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...

. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Guadaloupe" to all surviving claimants from the campaign.

Melampus was in company with the sloop when they captured a French corvette brig letter of marque

Letter of marque

In the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government licence authorizing a person to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale...

 on 28 May. The vessel was the Fantôme, of 300 tons burthen (bm), pierced for 20 heavy carronades, and with a crew of 74 men. She had made three captures before being captured herself. The Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name.

Last years

Melampus returned to Britain, and by December 1812 was under repair at Isaac Blackburn's yards, at Turnchapel. Work was completed by March 1814, and she was again fitted for sea, between April 1814 and May 1815 at Plymouth Dockyard. She was then sold to the Dutch government in June 1815 for the sum of £35,364.