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BARBADOES
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The French privateer LE BRAVE taken on 16 March 1803 by Capt. Frederick MAITLAND in LOIRE.
Wrecked in 1812. |
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- LE BRAVE was purchased by the merchants of Barbados and presented to the Government. She was commissioned as a post ship by Capt. Joseph NOURSE and he sailed on his first cruise on 13 October 1804.
- On the fourth day of his cruise, he took the French privateer ship NAPOLEON of 18 guns and 150 men after a chase of 13 hours, and in November he captured the French privateer sloop HEUREUX. She was nine days out of Guadeloupe and had made no captures. Her ten 6-pounders were thrown overboard during the chase. The Spanish brig ESTA, laden with tallow was taken in December.
- An English Guineaman laden with slaves was recaptured during January 1805.
On 8 April, in sight of the island of Barbados, the French privateer schooner DESIREE was taken. Carrying fourteen guns and a crew of 71 men, she had left Guadeloupe four days earlier but had made no captures. She was decoyed within musket shot and seven men were killed and wounded on board her when she returned fire. - 1811 Capt. B. HODGSON. Later in the year Capt. Edward RUSHWORTH, off Cherbourg.
At the beginning of September BARBADOES and GOSHAWK were sent to intercept seven French brigs, each armed with 3 long 24-pounders and a mortar, near the Calvados Rocks off Normandy.
BARBADOES drove one of them ashore on the 7th. and the following day they were joined by HOTSPUR. She grounded as she came within gun-shot and, although she sank one of the enemy and drove two others ashore, she lost 3 killed and 22 wounded from fire from batteries, field guns and the brigs. BARBADOES and GOSHAWK assisted as best they could with boats and hawsers. - On 30 September Mr MUSTARD, the carpenter, was tried by court martial for being intoxicated three times while watching the enemy off Cherbourg. He was dismissed from his office and banned from serving as an officer again.
- 1812 Capt. Thomas HUSKISSON, 06/1812, who removed from GARLAND.
With POLEPHEMUS he acted as escort to a convoy of merchantmen in August and on the 22nd captured the US revenue schooner JAMES MADISON, commanded by George Brooks, with 10 guns mounted and a complement of 65 men, after a chase of 7 hours some 200 miles off South Carolina. The schooner, from Savannah, had been hovering about the outskirts of the convoy waiting to attack the rear of the fleet.
A few days afterwards BARBADOES lost her top-masts and main-yard in a violent hurricane which separated her from the convoy. She made her way to Bermuda to refit. - While sailing to Halifax with three small vessels under convoy, BARBADOES and two of the vessels struck on the N. W. bar of Sable Island during the night of 28 September 1812 and were wrecked. The boats were stove in by the heavy surf before half the crew had been landed and she was smashed to pieces within 48 hours but only one man lost his life. BARBADOES had been carrying 60,000 dollars for the Halifax Dockyard, this was saved by attaching a buoy to each of the cases. The vessel that escaped took the news to Halifax and 12 days later they were rescued by SHANNON and a schooner.
The loss was blamed on an extraordinary and uncertain strength of currents.
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