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SPEEDY
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(14) |
Brig-sloop
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Built in 1782, King of Dover. Launched on 29 June. Armed with fourteen 4-pounders, complement of 90 officers and men.
Taken by the French in 1801. |
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- At the outbreak of the French revolutionary wars in February 1793 Speedy was commanded by Charles CUNNINGHAM and he sailed from England with dispatches for Lord HOOD at Gibraltar.
Here he remained for a time preparing a hospital and fitting up ships for prisoners.
In June 1793 SPEEDY took M. Calonne, an ex-minister of France, from Gibraltar to Naples on a political visit and afterwards maintained communication between Lord HOOD and the neutral port of Genoa, where British ships had been detained.
On 5 October SPEEDY accompanied BEDFORD (74) and CAPTAIN (74) to Genoa and assisted in seizing the MODESTE frigate and two armed tartans.
SPEEDY and CAPTAIN then sailed for Porta Especia in search of the French frigate IMPERIEUSE (40). She scuttled herself but was raised and taken into the Royal Navy as UNITE.
When CUNNINGHAM was ordered to commission UNITE, a Lieut. Wilson RATHBORNE was appointed out of CAPTAIN to command SPEEDY, but he was superseded a few days later by one of the Admiral's own lieutenants, George COCKBURN. - Her next captain was George EYRE.
SPEEDY was captured by three of the enemy's frigates off Nice on 9 June 1794. She was recaptured by Capt. Thomas FREMANTLE in INCONSTANT (36) on 27 March 1795. - In the summer of 1795 SPEEDY was with the squadron commanded by Commodore NELSON co-operating with the Austrian and Piedmontese armies.
In April 1796 six vessels laden with cannon and ordnance stores for the siege of Padua had sailed from Toulon.
On 1 May NELSON drove them to take shelter under a battery and MELEAGER led AGAMEMNON, SPEEDY AND PETERELL in until they brought up in four fathoms of water.
The boats went in under fire from four 18-pounder and musketry from the shore, and brought them off. - 1798 Hugh DOWNMAN.
During the time he commanded SPEEDY he captured several privateers.
At daylight on 3 February 1798, some 17 leagues west of Vigo, with a prize he had captured the day before, he discovered a brig bearing down on him.
When she got to within half a mile she hauled her wind and opened fire.
SPEEDY closed and engaged her for two and a half hours when she tacked and made sail away.
SPEEDY followed and continued the engagement for another two hours until light winds separated them out of gunshot.
In spite of using the sweeps, Capt DOWNMAN had the mortification of seeing the enemy firing a few shots at his prize without being able to reply.
The 12 men on board her battened down 26 Spaniards and made their escape in a small boat.
When a breeze sprang up Capt. DOWNMAN continued the chase through the following day, engaging when the opportunity occurred and making an unsuccessful attempt to board, but was eventually out-sailed.
The next morning the prize was sighted and retaken with 10 Frenchman on board.
He learnt that the brig had been the PAPILLON, 300 tons, pierced for 18 guns but mounting four 12 and ten 9-pounders.
SPEEDY lost five killed, including Lieut. DUTTON and the boatswain, Mr JOHNSON, and four badly wounded.
Her masts, spars and rigging were badly damaged so she went into Lisbon for repairs.
The British factory at Oporto presented Capt. DOWNMAN with a piece of plate worth 50 for his efforts in protecting their trade. - 1799 Jahleel BRENTON, Lisbon.
On 3 October as SPEEDY was passing through the Straits of Gibraltar she made sail after several small vessels coming out of Algeciras.
These proved to be eight coasters under the protection of a cutter and a schooner.
Capt. BRENTON separated two of the coasters but they ran under the guns of a castle.
The others were driven ashore in a bay to the eastward of Cape Trafalgar where, being on a lee shore, SPEEDY could not approach closer than four cables so Lieut. PARKER, the master, Mr MARSHALL, and the purser, Mr RICKETES, went in by boat to see if they could be brought off or set on fire.
The heavy surf made it impossible to do either so they boarded them, brought off some of the firearms and threw the rest overboard.
They left them wrecked and full of water. - On 6 November SPEEDY was lying off Europa Point with her convoy, the transport ship UNITY laden with wine for the fleet and a brig bound for Livorno, when 12 Spanish gunboats mounting 14 x 24-pdr guns between them came out to attack her and UNITY.
Capt. BRENTON covered the escape of UNITY by opening fire with grape and musketry as he sailed through the attacking boats.
Although they were driven off they caused much damage to SPEEDY's sails and hull preventing her from sailing to Gibraltar and she had to run into Tetuan Bay with water up to the lower deck to plug the holes.
Two seamen, Patrick BLAKE and William PRING, were killed and one, Thomas RILEY, wounded.
The naval medal was awarded to the survivors in 1847.
Capt. BRENTON was promoted to Post Captain and SPEEDY sailed from Livorno to Port Mahon so that he could take over command of GENEREUSE on 19 April from Lord COCHRANE who had brought GENEREUX in after her capture. - 1800 Lord Thomas COCHRANE, 28 March 1800, Mediterranean.
He was accompanied by his brother, midshipman Archibald COCHRANE.
At the beginning of his commission he captured the French privateer INTREPIDE while escorting a convoy from Cagliari to Livorno.
In June 1800 SPEEDY was ordered cruise off the Spanish coast and in the next thirteen months he captured or destroyed a large number of French and Spanish privateers and merchant vessels.
When SPEEDY became too well known COCHRANE was forced to adopt disguises. - While she was disguised as a Danish ship SPEEDY was approached by a large Spanish xebec out looking for her in December.
COCHRANE stationed a Danish speaking officer at the gang-way and scared away the Spaniards by pretending to have come from a Barbary port where the plague was raging. - On 1 February 1801 he got himself involved in a duel with a French royalist officer in Valetta after being thrown out of a fancy-dress ball wearing the rig of a British seaman.
A ball passed through Cochrane's clothes while the Frenchman was shot in the leg. - COCHRANE took the Spanish xebec frigate, GAMO, mounting 32 guns, near Barcelona on 6 May 1801 by firing treble-shotted broadsides into her before boarding with his whole crew.
The Spaniard's shot passed harmlessly overhead.
When COCHRANE first saw her he mistook her for a merchantman and it was only when she opened her disguised ports that her true nature was discovered.
SPEEDY's fourteen 4-pounders were matched against twenty-two long 12-pounders, eight 9 pounders and two carronades and her 54 officers, men and boys against 319 men.
(COCHRANE's crew had been reduced by men sent in prizes to Port Mahon two days before) - The Spanish losses were 15 killed, including the captain, Don Francisco de Torris, and 41 wounded.
The British lost 3 killed and 8 wounded.
The naval medal was awarded for this operation.
The French crew were taken to Port Mahon as prisoners in the hold of their own vessel with guns loaded with canister pointing down the hatchways and men with lighted matches standing by. - Lord COCHRANE and his men made very little in the way of prize money when the Government refused to buy her.
His official letter was not forwarded for a month and his request for promotion for his 1st. lieutenant, Richard Parker, who had been wounded, was rejected on the grounds that only a small number were killed in SPEEDY.
COCHRANE found himself out of favour with the Admiralty when he retorted that they were higher than in VICTORY when Lord St. VINCENT had become an earl and his first captain a knight. - On 1 June SPEEDY fell in with KANGAROO, Capt. PULLING, off Barcelona where they spoke a privateer from Minorca who gave information that a Spanish convoy of twelve sail with five armed escorts had passed to windward five days earlier.
They sailed in pursuit and on the 8th. they closed inshore to attack the tower at Almanara which mounted two brass 4-pounders.
After repeated calls for surrender were ignored they were forced to blow it up.
Lord COCHRANE and two of his men were singed and received a few bruises but were not seriously hurt.
On the morning of 9 June, they sighted the convoy at anchor under the battery of Oropeso.
SPEEDY led the way into the bay and both brigs anchored within half a gun shot of the enemy by noon and kept up a brisk exchange of fire with a battery of twelve guns, a xebec of twenty guns and three gunboats.
At two o'clock a 12-gun felucca and two more gunboats reinforced the enemy but by half past three the xebec and one of the gunboats sank, followed by another shortly after.
In the evening KANGAROO went in and silenced the tower then, until midnight, the boats of the two brigs under Lieut. FOULERTON of KANGAROO and Lieut. WARBURTON and midshipman COCHRANE of SPEEDY were employed in cutting out three brigs laden with wine rice and bread.
Later Lord COCHRANE took the same officers under his command and went inshore to try and bring off more but found the remainder were either sunk or driven ashore. - On 3 July 1801 SPEEDY, escorting a packet to Gibraltar, was chased and eventually captured by Rear-Ad. LINOIS's squadron of two battleships and a frigate as it passed through the Straits on the way from Toulon to Cadiz.
The French squadron was unsuccessfully attacked in Algeciras with COCHRANE watching from the deck of the DESSAIX.
SPEEDY was sighted later by RACOON in the Bay of Biscay heading for Brest under jury masts.
Lord COCHRANE was sent to Gibraltar on parole and was soon exchanged for the second captain of the SAN ANTO
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