HMS Quail 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...

 Cuckoo-class

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...

 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....

 of 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 a crew of 20. Custance & Stone built her at Great Yarmouth and launched her in 1806. Her decade-long career appears to have been relatively uneventful. She was sold in 1816.

Service

She was commissioned in June 1806 under Lieutenant Patrick Lowe for the Channel. In 1807 she was under Lieutenant Isaac Charles Smith Collett for the North Sea.In February 1807 Collett had been captain of Quail's sister ship, Woodcock

HMS Woodcock (1806)

HMS Woodcock was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. Crane & Holmes built and launched her at Great Yarmouth in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her...

 when she had wrecked. On 6 July Quail captured the Drie Gebroders. She also was at the surrender of the Danish Fleet after the Battle of Copenhagen

Battle of Copenhagen (1807)

The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British preemptive attack on Copenhagen, targeting the civilian population in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet and in turn originate the term to Copenhagenize.-Background:Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in...

 on 7 September. Quail also shared, with many other ships in the British fleet at Copenhagen, in the prize money for several captures in August: Hans and Jacob (17 August), Die Twee Gebroders (21 August), and Aurora, Paulina, and Ceres (30 and 31 August).

In 1809 Lieutenant John Osborn took command. On 19 May 1809 he captured the Jonge Jacob, P. Hansen, master. On 25 July Quail was in company Strenuous and the hired armed cutter Albion when Albion captured the Maria Catherina. Osborn sailed Quail for the Mediterranean on 11 September 1811.

Fate

In April 1814 Quail was under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Stewart. Quail was paid off into 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....

in October 1815, and put up for sale on 30 November. She was sold at Yarmouth on 11 January 1816 for £260.