Hired armed cutter Princess Augusta
Encyclopedia
The Hired armed
cutter Princess Augusta served the Royal Navy
from 12 July 1803 to 2 May 1814. She was armed with eight 4-pounder guns, had a complement of 26 men, and was of 70 tons burthen (bm
). She participated in several single ship actions and took several prizes before she was returned to her owners towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars
.
, Texel
and the Elbe
.
when he would participate in another, bloodier, but equally successful fight against great odds.)
Later, someone signing himself "De Faust" wrote a letter to the Delft Courant claiming, inter alia, that the Unie (Union) had carried only four small guns when that he had put to flight the Princess Augusta of fourteen 8-pounder guns. He further asserted that only her sailing off had prevented him from boarding her.
from Redcar
. The French privateer reportedly was under the command of a notorious pirate with the name "Blackman".
Towards the end of 1806 Princess Augusta captured several vessels. These were the Neptunus (4 November), the Onverwaght and Vrow Johanna (20 November), and the Kitty (11 December). She also captured the Morganstern, a fishing vessel, on 11 December.
On 27 January 1807, while 45 miles off Lowestoft
, Princess Augusta sighted a French privateer cutter and chased her for three hours. Tracey was eventually able to get alongside and after firing some guns and small arms into her, she struck. She was the Jena, commanded by Captain Francis Capelle, of four guns and 30 men. She also had a great number of small arms on board. She was 12 days out of Flushing and had made two captures. The next day Princess Augusta recaptured Jenas prizes, Sophia and Courieur, one of them a Prussian ship, laden with timber and bound to London. Later that year Tracey transferred to the brig .
On 19 February 1807 chased the French privateer cutter Chasseur into the hands of . At the time, Carrier was also in company with the hired armed cutters Princess Augusta, under the command of Lieutenant John Jenkins, and Princess of Wales.
As Carrier was returning to her station, together with Princess Augusta, at 9am she sighted a suspicious sail ten leagues
from Goree. After a chase of five hours she caught up with the French privateer schooner
Ragotin. Ragotin, under the command of Jaques Jappie, carried eight guns, which she had thrown overboard during the chase, and a crew of 29 men. She was eight days out of Dunkirk, on her first cruise, and had not made any captures.
By June 1807 Princess Augusta was under the command of Lieutenant Robert Jordan. On 2 June she captured the Frau Barbara and Frau Gerina. On 26 July she captured the Goede Hoope. Then on 10 October she re-captured the Cadiz Packet. On 19 November, she re-captured the Sunneside. Lastly, on 30 December, she was under the command of Lieutenant Andrew McCulloch when she recaptured the Swedish brig Frederica.
On 15 February 1808, Princess Augusta captured the Johanna.
While cruising some 40 miles north-west of the Texel
on the evening of 5 March Princess Augusta encountered a French privateer cutter. After chasing her for 24 hours McCulloch drove her on shore at Katwick (Katwijk-aan-Zee
near The Hague
). As the winds were too strong to deploy the boats, he took the cutter in as close as possible and exchanged fire. By the evening of 8 March the weather moderated. The boats went in under a heavy small arms fire from the shore and destroyed the French boat. Fishermen told McCulloch that the privateer was the Dunkerquois, of Dunkirk, mounting four 3-pounders and with a crew of 45 men. She was formerly the Revenue cutter Nimble of Deal.
On 7 April Princess Augusta recaptured the galiot
Aurora. Four days later, Princess Augusta and the hired armed cutter Alert recaptured the Louisa, Vier Gebrooders, Twee Gebrooders and Musche. The brig shared in the capture of Musche.
On 17 July, in company with Alert, Princess Augusta captured the Femme Fama, Deux Freres, and Hilkje Maria. Princess Augusta was in company with the gun-brig and the when they captured the Dutch fishing vessels Meernia, Johanna and Stadt Olderberg on 20 August 1808. Next, Princess Augusta captured the Swedish ship Midas on 10 November 1808.
Ten days later, on 1 August, Princess Augusta and Alert were part of a small squadron cruising off the coast between the Texel and the Elbe. The squadron was under the command of Captain Charles Sibthorpe Hawtayne of the 32-gun frigate . The other vessels of the squadron were the 16-gun brig , Commander George G. Lennock, and the gun-brigs and , Lieutenants James Murray and Sir George M. Keith, baronet. The squadron received intelligence from earlier captures of four Danish gun brigs lying at anchor at the island of Nordeney and Hawtayne sent in a cutting-out party of 10 boats. Each of the Danish vessels had a crew of 25 men.
The Danes were ready and as the boats approached to within pistol shot fired grape and canister. The British immediately boarded and carried the first vessel but the other three resisted longer.
Princess Augusta had one man killed and one wounded. The pilot to the expedition, James Muggeridge of Princess Augusta, was among the wounded. He was a volunteer and so not entitled to any disability pension but fortunately his wound was minor. In all, the British lost four killed and fourteen wounded. The Danes lost two men killed and ten men wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "2 Aug. Boat Service 1811" to the surviving claimants from this action.
On 23 May 1813 Princess Augusta was in company with , , and when they captured the Danish vessels Jonge Greenwoldt, Hoffnung 1 and 2, and another vessel, name unknown.
Then on 10 July Princess Augusta was part of a squadron that captured eight small vessels in the Elbe and Weser. The squadron included , under Captain Arthur Farquhar, who was the overall commander, Calliope, , , and gunboats. On 3 August Princess Augusta captured five small vessels called evers.
On 5 January 1814 Princess Augusta was part of Farquhar's squadron, comprising Desiree, Hearty, , ,
Shamrock, Redbreast and eight gun-boats, at the capitulation of the town and fortress of Gluckstadt
during the War of the Sixth Coalition
. On 15 July 1816 there was a first payment of ₤5000 in prize money to the navy.
Hired armed vessels
right|thumb|250px|Armed cutter, etching in the [[National Maritime Museum]], [[Greenwich]]During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Royal Navy made use of a considerable number of hired armed vessels...
cutter Princess Augusta served 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...
from 12 July 1803 to 2 May 1814. She was armed with eight 4-pounder guns, had a complement of 26 men, and was of 70 tons burthen (bm
Builder's Old Measurement
Builder's Old Measurement is the method of calculating the size or cargo capacity of a ship used in England from approximately 1720 to 1849. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on length and maximum beam...
). She participated in several single ship actions and took several prizes before she was returned to her owners towards the end of the 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...
.
Service
In 1803 Lieutenant James Woodward Scott took command of Princess Augusta for the North Sea. In the second week of September she delivered orders from Lord Keith to warships off HellevoetsluisHellevoetsluis
Hellevoetsluis is a small city and municipality on Voorne-Putten Island in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland...
, Texel
Texel
Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...
and the Elbe
Elbe
The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...
.
Princess Augusta vs. Two Dutch privateers
On 20 September, 45 miles northeast of Texel, she encountered two schooners that bore down on her and opened fire, killing two of Princess Augusta's crew and mortally wounding Scott. The two schooners were Dutch: Union, under Lieutenant Commander St. Faust, of 12 guns and 70 men, and Wraak, under Lieutenant Commander Doudet, of eight guns and 50 men. The Dutch attempted to board but were unable to do so. Eventually, they sailed off. In addition to the two men killed in the initial broadside, Princess Augusta had suffered three wounded, including Scott, who died the next morning. Command devolved on her Master, Joseph Thomas, who made for Dover. The tide was against them and they were unable to land until the afternoon of 23 September. Wraak reportedly lost one man killed and several wounded. (Seven years later Thomas would be in command of the Hired armed cutter Queen CharlotteHired armed cutter Queen Charlotte
The hired armed cutter Queen Charlotte served the Royal Navy on two contracts, the first from 10 June 1803 to 13 February 1805, and the second from 17 September 1807 to 17 May 1814. She was of 75 14/94 tons burthen and carried an armament of eight 4-pounder guns...
when he would participate in another, bloodier, but equally successful fight against great odds.)
Later, someone signing himself "De Faust" wrote a letter to the Delft Courant claiming, inter alia, that the Unie (Union) had carried only four small guns when that he had put to flight the Princess Augusta of fourteen 8-pounder guns. He further asserted that only her sailing off had prevented him from boarding her.
Prize taking
On 13 June 1804, while under the command of Lieutenant John Tracey, Princess Augusta encountered a 14-gun French privateer off Huntcliff. During the engagement, which lasted nearly four hours, the Princess Augusta took several shot near the water line and sustained extensive damage to her rigging. Still, she suffered only three men wounded, though one desperately. The French vessel sheered off on the approach of two schooners manned with Sea FenciblesSea Fencibles
The original Sea Fencibles were a naval militia established to provide a close-in line of defense to protect the United Kingdom from invasion by France during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
from Redcar
Redcar
Redcar is a seaside resort in the north east of England, and a major town in the unitary authority of Redcar and Cleveland in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire. It lies east-northeast of Middlesbrough by the North Sea coast...
. The French privateer reportedly was under the command of a notorious pirate with the name "Blackman".
Towards the end of 1806 Princess Augusta captured several vessels. These were the Neptunus (4 November), the Onverwaght and Vrow Johanna (20 November), and the Kitty (11 December). She also captured the Morganstern, a fishing vessel, on 11 December.
On 27 January 1807, while 45 miles off Lowestoft
Lowestoft
Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...
, Princess Augusta sighted a French privateer cutter and chased her for three hours. Tracey was eventually able to get alongside and after firing some guns and small arms into her, she struck. She was the Jena, commanded by Captain Francis Capelle, of four guns and 30 men. She also had a great number of small arms on board. She was 12 days out of Flushing and had made two captures. The next day Princess Augusta recaptured Jenas prizes, Sophia and Courieur, one of them a Prussian ship, laden with timber and bound to London. Later that year Tracey transferred to the brig .
On 19 February 1807 chased the French privateer cutter Chasseur into the hands of . At the time, Carrier was also in company with the hired armed cutters Princess Augusta, under the command of Lieutenant John Jenkins, and Princess of Wales.
As Carrier was returning to her station, together with Princess Augusta, at 9am she sighted a suspicious sail ten leagues
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
from Goree. After a chase of five hours she caught up with the French privateer 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....
Ragotin. Ragotin, under the command of Jaques Jappie, carried eight guns, which she had thrown overboard during the chase, and a crew of 29 men. She was eight days out of Dunkirk, on her first cruise, and had not made any captures.
By June 1807 Princess Augusta was under the command of Lieutenant Robert Jordan. On 2 June she captured the Frau Barbara and Frau Gerina. On 26 July she captured the Goede Hoope. Then on 10 October she re-captured the Cadiz Packet. On 19 November, she re-captured the Sunneside. Lastly, on 30 December, she was under the command of Lieutenant Andrew McCulloch when she recaptured the Swedish brig Frederica.
On 15 February 1808, Princess Augusta captured the Johanna.
While cruising some 40 miles north-west of the Texel
Texel
Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark...
on the evening of 5 March Princess Augusta encountered a French privateer cutter. After chasing her for 24 hours McCulloch drove her on shore at Katwick (Katwijk-aan-Zee
Katwijk
Katwijk is a coastal municipality and town in the province of South Holland in the western Netherlands. It has a population of 61,292.-Location:...
near The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
). As the winds were too strong to deploy the boats, he took the cutter in as close as possible and exchanged fire. By the evening of 8 March the weather moderated. The boats went in under a heavy small arms fire from the shore and destroyed the French boat. Fishermen told McCulloch that the privateer was the Dunkerquois, of Dunkirk, mounting four 3-pounders and with a crew of 45 men. She was formerly the Revenue cutter Nimble of Deal.
On 7 April Princess Augusta recaptured the galiot
Galiot
Galiots were types of ships from the Age of Sail.In the Mediterranean, galiots were a type of small galley, with one or two masts and about twenty oars, using both sails and oars for propulsion...
Aurora. Four days later, Princess Augusta and the hired armed cutter Alert recaptured the Louisa, Vier Gebrooders, Twee Gebrooders and Musche. The brig shared in the capture of Musche.
On 17 July, in company with Alert, Princess Augusta captured the Femme Fama, Deux Freres, and Hilkje Maria. Princess Augusta was in company with the gun-brig and the when they captured the Dutch fishing vessels Meernia, Johanna and Stadt Olderberg on 20 August 1808. Next, Princess Augusta captured the Swedish ship Midas on 10 November 1808.
Cutting-out expedition
On 21 July 1811, while still under McCulloch's command, she captured the Vrow Geertje, alias La Femme Gertrude, Le Vrow Jantje, La Marguerita, Drey Gebroadrs, and Vry Gewaagt.Ten days later, on 1 August, Princess Augusta and Alert were part of a small squadron cruising off the coast between the Texel and the Elbe. The squadron was under the command of Captain Charles Sibthorpe Hawtayne of the 32-gun frigate . The other vessels of the squadron were the 16-gun brig , Commander George G. Lennock, and the gun-brigs and , Lieutenants James Murray and Sir George M. Keith, baronet. The squadron received intelligence from earlier captures of four Danish gun brigs lying at anchor at the island of Nordeney and Hawtayne sent in a cutting-out party of 10 boats. Each of the Danish vessels had a crew of 25 men.
The Danes were ready and as the boats approached to within pistol shot fired grape and canister. The British immediately boarded and carried the first vessel but the other three resisted longer.
Princess Augusta had one man killed and one wounded. The pilot to the expedition, James Muggeridge of Princess Augusta, was among the wounded. He was a volunteer and so not entitled to any disability pension but fortunately his wound was minor. In all, the British lost four killed and fourteen wounded. The Danes lost two men killed and ten men wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "2 Aug. Boat Service 1811" to the surviving claimants from this action.
Prize taking
On 9 April 1812, Princess Augusta was in company with when they captured the Danish vessels Frau Catherina Elizabeth and Emanuel.On 23 May 1813 Princess Augusta was in company with , , and when they captured the Danish vessels Jonge Greenwoldt, Hoffnung 1 and 2, and another vessel, name unknown.
Then on 10 July Princess Augusta was part of a squadron that captured eight small vessels in the Elbe and Weser. The squadron included , under Captain Arthur Farquhar, who was the overall commander, Calliope, , , and gunboats. On 3 August Princess Augusta captured five small vessels called evers.
On 5 January 1814 Princess Augusta was part of Farquhar's squadron, comprising Desiree, Hearty, , ,
Shamrock, Redbreast and eight gun-boats, at the capitulation of the town and fortress of Gluckstadt
Glückstadt
Glückstadt is a town in the Steinburg district of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is located on the right bank of the Lower Elbe at the confluence of the small Rhin river, about northwest of Altona...
during the War of the Sixth Coalition
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition , a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German States finally defeated France and drove Napoleon Bonaparte into exile on Elba. After Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, the continental powers...
. On 15 July 1816 there was a first payment of ₤5000 in prize money to the navy.