When HMS Maidstone and HMS Spartan captured the American privateer Rapid in 1812, the Royal Navy took her into service as the 14-gun gun-brig HMS Nova Scotia. She was renamed HMS Ferret in 1813 and sold in 1820.
Privateer Rapid
Rapid, of Portland, Maine, had two commanders, Captain W. Crabtree and Captain Joseph Weeks, during her career as a privateer. Rapid captured one ship, the Experience, and two brigs. Experience's cargo was valued at US$250,000.[a]
The owners of one brig ransomed her and Rapid sent the other, St. Andrews, of eight guns and sailing in ballast, into Portland.[5] Another report has Rapid capturing a barqueSt Andrews, of eight guns, that she sent into Portland.[6] The ransomed vessel may have been the schooner Mary, of St Thomas, which Rapid ransomed as Rapid could not spare the men for a prize crew.[7]Rapid also captured the brig Pursuit, sailing from Poole to St. Andrews, and the brig Tay, sailing from Dundee for Pictou, New Brunswick. Rapid sent both into Portland.[6] Lastly, Rapid captured and burnt the British New Providence privateer Searcher, of one gun and twenty men.[8]
Capture
On 17 October 1812, Maidstone and Spartan, part of the squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren, were in company when Maidstone captured Rapid on the Saint George's Bank. Rapid was armed with 14 cannon – twelve carronades of various sizes and two long 6-pounder guns – but her crew had thrown eight of her cannons overboard to lighten her during the nine-hour chase. She had a crew of 84 men and was three days out of Portland. Her backers had provisioned her for a three-month cruise, first off the Azores, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands, and then off Cayenne and Bermuda.[9]
The British commissioned her in Halifax in November 1812 as HMS Nova Scotia under Lieutenant Bartholomew Kent,[1] who sailed her to Britain. She was fitted at Plymouth between 7 July and 30 September 1813 and renamed Ferret. She was commissioned again in June or July of that year under Commander William Ramsden.[1]
In May 1814 Ferret was at St Helena under Commander James Stirling.[1] Stirling commissioned Ferret rapidly on Napoleon's return to France from Elba, and received praise for the speed with which he accomplished the task.[10] On 19 July 1815, Ferret was in company with Havannah, Sealark, Rhin, Menelaus, and Fly when they captured the French vessels Fortune, Papillon, Marie Graty, Marie Victorine, Cannoniere, and Printemis.[b] The attack took place at Korejou Bay, near Brest on the coast of Brittany, and during the action Ferret was able to prevent the escape of a French man-of-war brig that she forced ashore. The action cost Ferret one man.[10] Apparently, this cutting out expedition was the last of the war.[12]
Ferret then sailed to St Helena again on 15 August 1815 as part of the squadron under Northumberland that was taking Napoleon Bonaparte into exile. On her way home she encountered the Spanish brigantine Dolores. At the time, Ferret's armament consisted of only eight carronades,[c] while Dolores had a long 32-pounder gun on a pivot, four long 9-pounder guns, and two 12-pounder carronades.[14]Ferret was therefore outranged. Dolores's initial fire killed two men in Ferret. In the subsequent action, which lasted some three hours, Ferret lost another three men wounded,[10] two of whom died later from their wounds, before she came alongside Dolores, at which point the Spaniard struck. Dolores was carrying 275 slaves, so Ferret took her to Sierra Leone for the vessel and cargo to be condemned for violating the British prohibition on the slave trade.[d] This gave rise to a suit in which the Court found that Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn was entitled to the flag officer's share of the prize money.[16]
The Admiralty placed Ferret in ordinary at Plymouth in June 1816. She was fitted for sea again March–April 1817 under Lieutenant William Pitman.[1] At some point in the year she may have come under the command of W. Ramsden, though she was under Pitman's command in 1818.[17]
Fate
Ferret was sold at Plymouth on 13 January 1820 to a Mr. Rundle for £460.[1]
Notes
^Because several vessels shared names, and descriptions were not precise, sources are contradictory or ambiguous. Experience may actually have been captured by the Rapid of Charleston, as Coggeshall reports that she was sent into Savannah.[4]
^A first-class share of the prize money was worth £55 18s4+1⁄2d; a sixth-class share was worth 10s 10+3⁄4d.[11]
^Ferret had landed her two long guns at Ascension for that island's defense, and stowed four of her carronades to make room on her deck for extra water.[13]
^Dolores appears to be the vessel under the command of Jose Carbonell with Santiago Rauto y Oliver and Pie and Co. as owners. She landed 249 slaves at Freetown, a number having died on the way.[15]
Dodson, John and William Scott (Baron Stowell), Great Britain. High Court of Admiralty (1828) Reports of cases argued and determined in the High Court of Admiralty: commencing with the judgments of Sir William Scott: Trinity term 1811-[1822]. (Printed by A. Strahan for J. Butterworth).
Emmons, George Foster (1853). The navy of the United States, from the commencement, 1775 to 1853; with a brief history of each vessel's service and fate ... Comp. by Lieut. George F. Emmons ... under the authority of the Navy Dept. To which is added a list of private armed vessels, fitted out under the American flag ... also a list of the revenue and coast survey vessels, and principal ocean steamers, belonging to citizens of the United States in 1850. Washington: Gideon & Co.
Goold, William (1886) Portland in the Past. (Portland: Thurston & Co.), 482–486.
Grindal, Peter (2016). Opposing the Slavers: The Royal Navy's Campaign against the Atlantic Slave Trade. I.B.Tauris. ASINB01MYTNUEH.
Vice-Admiralty Court, Halifax (1911). American vessels captured by the British during the revolution and war of 1812. Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
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