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CONSTANCE
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Taken by SAN FIORENZO and NYMPHE off Brest 9 March 1797. Taken 1806. |
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- Capt. J. B. HAY, 08/1799. Plymouth.
- 1801 Capt. Zachary MUDGE.
On 15 April 1801 CONSTANCE sailed from Portsmouth and safely convoyed a fleet of merchant men from Falmouth to Lisbon and Oporto. She then collected vessels laden with brandy from Viana without which the port wine could not have been made ready to be brought home in a convoy of 82 vessels. - On 8 June 1801 CONSTANCE captured the Spanish national cutter DUIDES (8), which had left Vigo earlier in the day. She had been carrying dispatches to the Havana but these were thrown overboard during the chase.
- CONSTANCE sailed from Portsmouth for Oporto on 19 July and she was about 4 miles north of Cape Ortegal on 27 July when a brig and a lugger were seen rounding the point within a quarter of a mile of the shore.
Capt. MUDGE ran his ship close in to the Firgu Rocks and forced the two enemy vessels to take the inner channel, giving them each a broadside. STORK stood into the bay and forced the brig ashore. CONSTANCE's boats under Lieut. STUPART brought her off under ill-directed fire from a cliff top. She was the privateer CANTARA of 22 guns and 110 men. Her consort was also taken as were two French brigs laden with brandy. - On 29 August she sailed to join the squadron off Le Havre and returned to Portsmouth on 4 September having sprung her main-mast, fore-mast and main-yard in a gale.
At the end of the year she took General Count Viomenil to Lisbon. - The Portuguese were offended when ACTIVE anchored in the Tagus on 27 March without conforming to quarantine after arriving from Gibraltar and during the evening they seized the crews of the captain's barges belonging to ACTIVE and CONSTANCE at the packet-boat stairs and lodged them police cells.
When the captains remonstrated they were themselves arrested and remained in custody for 13 hours until the Duke of Sussex and Gen. Fraser could secure their release.
- In the summer of 1802 CONSTANCE conveyed disbanded soldiers from Lymington to the Elbe.
Capt. MUDGE was appointed to BLANCHE in October. - 1802 Anselm GRIFFTHS, 09/1802, She was employed in the blockade of the Elbe and as a cruiser off the coast of Portugal and in the Channel. When he was returning to Yarmouth on 13 July 1803 he fell in with the French privateer lugger FURET of Boulogne and captured her after a chase of three hours.
He removed to TOPAZE in July 1806. - 1806 Capt. Alexander Saunderson BURROWES.
CONSTANCE, with the gunbrigs STRENUOUS and SHARPSHOOTER in company, drove a French frigate on shore to the westward of Cape Frehol on 9 September.
It was too hazardous for the vessels or their boats to get in close and they had to leave the enemy to be wrecked by a gale. - CONSTANCE, SHELDRAKE, STRENUOUS and the hired cutter BRITANNIA weighed from the anchorage at Chansey with the ebb tide at 6 AM on the 12 October. When they stood in to reconnoitre St. Malo a sail was discovered off Cape Frehel to which they gave chase, using sweeps nearly the whole way. Their quarry was LA SALAMANDRE, a frigate-built ship with twenty-six long 12 and 18-pounders, which succeeded in getting into the Bouche d'Arkie where she moored under the protection of a battery of guns and troops with field-guns. The squadron anchored within pistol-shot of the enemy and both sides opened a spirited fire during which Capt. BURROWES was killed by a grape shot.
After two hours the French struck and the first lieutenant of SHELDRAKE took possession of the prize. Both CONSTANCE and SALAMANDRE took the ground and neither could be got off. When CONSTANCE floated with the tide an attempt was made to save her but those employed on the service were either killed or made prisoner. The prize was burnt but CONSTANCE was still full of wounded; about 100 of her officers and men were saved and the following day she was seen to be completely wrecked on the rocks.
A court martial was held on board GLADIATOR in Portsmouth on 27 October on the surviving officers and ship's company. They were honourably acquitted and Capt. BURROWES was praised for his brave conduct in the action.
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