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USS Cyane (1796)
Encyclopedia
Cyane 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...
sailing Banterer-Class
Banterer class post ship
The Banterer-class sailing sixth rates were a series of six post ships built to an 1805 design by Sir William Rule, which served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War...
sixth-rate
Sixth-rate
Sixth rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for small warships mounting between 20 and 24 nine-pounder guns on a single deck, sometimes with guns on the upper works and sometimes without.-Rating:...
ship of 22 guns, built in 1806 at Topsham
Topsham
Topsham may refer to:United Kingdom:* Topsham, DevonUnited States:* Topsham, Maine, a town** Topsham , Maine, a census-designated place in the town* Topsham, Vermont, a town...
, near Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Columbine and was renamed Cyane
HMS Cyane (1806)
HMS Cyane was a Royal Navy Banterer-class sixth-rate post ship of nominally 22 guns, built in 1806 at Topsham, near Exeter, England. She was ordered in January 1805 as HMS Columbine but renamed Cyane on 6 December of that year...
on 6 December of that year.
Under Captain Thomas Staines
Thomas Staines
Sir Thomas Staines, , Captain in the Royal Navy, Knight Commander of the Bath, and of the Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit, and Knight of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent....
she captured the Spanish 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...
Medusa in 1808 which was the last ship captured by the British before Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
turned against Napoleon. In May 1809 she was badly damaged during a battle with French gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
s and the French frigate Ceres.
She was captured with on 20 February 1815 by after a 40-minute night engagement off Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
. With Constitutions second lieutenant Hoffman as prize master
Prize crew
Prize crew is a term used to indicate a number of crew members of a ship chosen to take over the operations of a captured ship.In the early days of sailing and up into the American Civil War, capturing enemy ships was quite common...
, she successfully escaped recapture by a pursuing British squadron on 12 March and arrived in America on 10 April. She was adjudicated by a prize court
Prize court
A prize court is a court authorized to consider whether or not a ship has been lawfully captured or seized in time of war or under the terms of the seizing ship's letters of marque and reprisal...
and purchased by the Navy and renamed USS Cyane.
Cyane cruised off the west coast of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
from 1819-1820 and in the West Indies from 1820-1821 protecting the Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
n colony and suppressing piracy and the slave trade. In this regard she was a predecessor to the Africa Squadron
Africa Squadron
The Africa Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy that operated from 1819 to 1861 to suppress the slave trade along the coast of West Africa...
. She cruised in the Mediterranean 1824-1825, and on the Brazil Station 1826-1827. Laid up at Philadelphia Navy Yard, she sank in 1835 and was raised and broken up the following year.
The April/May 1983 issue of American Heritage
American Heritage (magazine)
American Heritage is a quarterly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. Since that time, Edwin S...
magazine carried an article "What it was like to be Shot up by Old Ironsides" concerning the discovery of three pages of HMS Cyanes logbook from 13–20 February 1815, with a transcription of the 20 February 1815 battle.