The hired armed

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...

 ship Harlequin 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 2 July 1804 until her wrecking on 7 December 1809. She was of 185 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...

 tons burthen and carried an armament of ten 6-pounder guns, eight 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 two swivel gun

Swivel gun

The term swivel gun usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to...

s. During her service with the Royal Navy Harlequin captured a number of prizes.

Letter of Marque

The hired armed ship Harlequin probably was the ship Harlequin that received a 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 27 August 1803. Her master was John Dyer and her description on the warrant gave her tonnage as 180 tons burthen, her armament as twenty 6 and 12-pounder cannon, and her crew as consisting of 70 men.

In late May the privateer Harlequin, under the command of Captain Jenkins, arrived at Fowey

Fowey

Fowey is a small town, civil parish and cargo port at the mouth of the River Fowey in south Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 2,273.-Early history:...

 from Oporto

Porto

Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...

. She reported that while at Oporto in early 1804, Harlequins boat, with Captain Dyer and five other men, was swamped. A Portuguese boat rescued a Mr. Hall, but the other five were all drowned. Then in April, while she was off Cape Finisterre

Cape Finisterre

right|thumb|300px|Position of Cape Finisterre on the [[Iberian Peninsula]]Cape Finisterre is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain....

, she had repelled a French vessel but only after losing one man killed and nine wounded. Then on 9 May she had driven a French schooner of four carriage guns and 40 men ashore three 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...

 south of Viana where the schooner went to pieces.

Naval service

Harlequin was under the command of Lieutenant Phillip C. Anstruther when she captured four Prussian vessels on 3 April 1806. The vessels were the Petronelle, Vrow Maria, Jonge Roelf Polman and Iris. Later that year, on 10 December, Harlequin was in company with when they recaptured the Betsey.
Then on 30 August 1807, Harlequin captured the Danish ship Ole Smith Ploug. Two months later, on 30 October 1807 Harlequin recaptured the Galatea, Thomas Ballantyne, master.

Loss

On 5 December 1809 Harlequin, still under Anstruther's command, left Plymouth Sound with a convoy of 22 vessels that she was escorting through the English Channel. On the evening of 7 December she suddenly struck the shore. Her crew chopped away her masts, fired distress guns, and burnt blue lights. Still, six other vessels in the convoy also ran ashore. Apparently, in the darkness, the vessels had mistakenly believed they had passed Beachy Head

Beachy Head

Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...

 and so prematurely changed course, with the result that they ran ashore west of Seaford

Seaford, East Sussex

Seaford is a coastal town in the county of East Sussex, on the south coast of England. Lying east of Newhaven and Brighton and west of Eastbourne, it is the largest town in Lewes district, with a population of about 23,000....

. Two men of Harlequins crew drowned. Apparently the warning signals saved the 16 other vessels in the convoy.

There was a passenger aboard Harlequin, traveling with his wife and two children. After all the men were ashore, it was realized that the woman and her children were still on board. Two sailors took a boat and at tremendous risk brought them all safely to shore.

The six merchant vessels that were lost, with the number of casualties in parentheses, were:

• ship Weymouth (4);
• brig Traveller (0);
• schooner Albion (0);
• Unice (0);
• Promsiwitbow (14);
• Methedost (all).

One estimate gives the total number of people lost on the merchant vessels as 40.