HMS Crocodile (1806)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Crocodile.
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Crocodile
Ordered: 30 January 1805
Builder: Simon Temple, Temple shipbuilders, South Shields
Laid down: June 1805
Launched: 19 April 1806[1]
Out of service: June 1815[1]
Fate: Broken up 1816
General characteristics [1]
Class and type: Banterer-class post-ship
Tons burthen: 538 50⁄94 (bm)
Length: 118 ft 2 in (36.0 m) (overall); 98 ft 7 5⁄8 in (30.1 m) (keel)
Beam: 32 ft 0 1⁄2 in (9.8 m)
Depth of hold: 10 ft 7 in (3.2 m)
Propulsion: Sail
Complement: 155
Armament:
  • Designed
    • Upper deck (D):22 × 9-pounder guns
    • QD:6 × 24-pounder carronades
    • Fc:2 × 6-pounder Chase guns + 2 × 24-pounder carronades
  • Later
    • UD:22 × 32-pounder carronades
    • QD:2 × 6-pounder guns + 4 × 18-pounder carronades
    • Fc:2 × 6-pounder guns + 2 × 18-pounder carronades

HMS Crocodile was a 22-gun sixth-rate post-ship launched in South Shields in 1806. She was broken up at Portsmouth in October 1816.

Career

In July 1806 Captain John Astley Bennet commissioned Crocodile, but was replaced within the month by Captain George Edmund Byron Bettesworth.

While with Crocodile, Bettesworth was involved in an unsuccessful claim for salvage rights to the American vessel Walker. A French privateer had captured Walker, but her crew has subsequently recaptured their ship when Crocodile came on the scene. Crocodile then escorted Walker to Halifax. For this service, Bettesworth claimed salvage rights. The court did not agree.[2]

On 29 August 1807 Crocodile captured De Twende Brodre, while the privateer Lion was in sight.[Note 1]

Captain the Hon. George Cadogan succeeded Bettesworth in 1808.[1] In November Cadogan and Crocodile captured sundry Danish vessels. This led, in December 1809, to her receiving a distribution of £4000 in prize money;[4] Cadogan would have received at least a quarter of that. On 21 December Croccodile was in company with Alexandria and Fury and shared in the capture on that day of Cupido and Speculaton.[5]

In 1809 Captain Edward Columbine took command. On 13 January 1810 he sailed Crocodile for Africa.[1] On 22 May Crocodile took Donna Marianna for breach of the Act for the abolition of the slave trade. Although Donna Marianna was ostensibly a Portuguese vessel, a British court on appeal upheld the seizure on the grounds that she was actually a British vessel and her Portuguese papers were a fraud.[Note 2]

Thomas Ludlam, former Governor of Sierra Leone died on board HMS Crocodile on 25 July 1810.[8]

Captain John Richard Lumley succeeded Columbine in 1811, and was himself replaced by Captian William Elliot in June 1812. Elliot and Crocodile served on the Channel Islands station. Still, Elliot sailed her for Portugal on 9 November.[1]

Fate

Crocodile was paid off in June 1815. She then was broken up in October 1816 at Portsmouth.[1]

Notes, citations and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A first class share of the prize money was worth £12 8s 0½d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 1s 3¼d.[3]
  2. ↑ A moiety of the proceeds of the seizure was then paid in November 1814. The distribution to the officers and crew was governed by the provisions of His Majesty's Act in Council of 12 October 1764, not the more recent changes in the prize law. Columbine's share of the distribution was worth £443 17s 0d; a seaman's share was worth £1 15s 9d.[6] The reason that the 1764 Order pertained was that the Donna Marianna was treated as a smuggler. It was only on 14 October 1816 that a new Order in Council rescinded the 1764 Order, and brought the treatment of bounty money for smugglers in line with that for other prizes.[7]
Citations
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Winfield (2008), p.236.
  2. ↑ Stewart (1814), pp.105-112.
  3. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 16324. p. 1992. 12 December 1809.
  4. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 16322. p. 1960. 5 December 1809.
  5. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 16348. p. 342. 6 March 1810.
  6. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 16960. p. 2347. 26 November 1814.
  7. ↑ Hersee (1829), pp.349-360.
  8. ↑ Timperley (1839), p.840.
References
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