HMS Cruelle (1800)

History
France
Name: Cruelle
Builder: probably Lemarchand, Saint-Malo
Laid down: ca. March 1793
Launched: July 1793
Captured: 1 June 1800
UK
Name: HMS Cruelle
Acquired: 1 June 1800 by capture
Honours and
awards:		 Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt".[1]
Fate: Sold 1801
General characteristics [2][3]
Class and type: Vesuve-class
Type: Schooner
Displacement: 140 tons (French)
Length:
  • 22.74 metres (74.6 ft) (overall)
  • 19.49 metres (63.9 ft) (keel)
Beam: 6.50 metres (21.3 ft)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Schooner
Complement: 53 (French service)
Armament:
  • French service: 4 x 24-pounder guns + 2 x swivel guns
  • British service: 8 or 10 x 4-pounder guns

Cruelle was a schooner-cannoniere (gun-schooner), launched in 1793. The British captured her in June 1800 and commissioned her as HMS Cruelle. She spent a little over a year in the Mediterranean, serving at Malta and Alexandria before the Royal Navy sold her in 1801.

French service and capture

Cruelle was one of seven Vesuve-class brick-canonniers, though she herself was described as being schooner-rigged.[2] However, her captors described her as a brig.

In late 1794 she sailed from Brest to Guadeloupe to alert the French there that a naval squadron under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Duchesne was on its way with supplies and reinforcements.[4] At some point thereafter, Cruelle was converted to a bomb vessel.

On 1 June 1800 about 12 leagues southward of Les HièresMermaid captured Cruelle when Cruelle was only eight hours out of Toulon. Captain R. Dudley Oliver of Mermaid described Cruelle as a brig of six guns, four of which she had thrown overboard during the chase. She had a crew of 43 men under the command of Ensigne de vaisseau Francis Xavier Jeard. She was a bomb vessel but had left her mortar at Toulon as she was carrying supplies for Malta.[5]

The British took Cruelle into service under her existing name. All subsequent British accounts refer to Cruelle as a cutter of ten guns.

British service

Cruelle was present at the surrender of the island of Malta on 5 September 1800. As a result, she was entitled to share in the prize money for the island.[6]

Cruelle was registered on 3 October 1800 and commissioned in February 1801 under Lieutenant Charles Inglis for the Mediterranean.[3]

On 8 March she was at Abu Qir Bay under the command of Lieutenant David M'Gie (or McGhie),[7] Cruelle protected the left flank during the landing of troops in Aboukir Bay, together with the cutter Janissary and the gun-vessel Dangereuse.[8] The cutter Entreprenante, schooner Malta, and the gun-vessel Negresse covered the right flank.[8]

Also in March Lieutenant Edward (or Edmond or Edmund) Boger was appointed to command her.[3] On 9 May Cruelle, Kent, and Hector unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria.[9]

In 1850 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service medal with clasp "Egypt" to all naval officers and men who had served there between 8 March and 2 September. In the medal listing Boger is listed as Cruelle's captain. Apparently he personally also received the Turkish gold medal for the gallantry he displayed there.[10][Note 1]

Fate

Cruelle was sold in 1801 at Alexandria. She was deleted from the lists on 13 May 1802.[3]

Notes, citations, and references

Notes
  1. ↑ A first-class share of the prize money awarded in April 1823 was worth £34 2s 4d; a fifth-class share, that of a seaman, was worth 3s 11½d. The amount was small as the total had to be shared between 79 vessels and the entire army contingent.[11]
Citations
  1. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 21077. pp. 791–792. 15 March 1850.
  2. 1 2 Winfield and Roberts (2015), p. 274.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), p.356.
  4. ↑ de Peyreleau (1825), Vol. 3, p.42.
  5. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 15274. p. 784. 8 July 1800.
  6. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 15605. pp. 929–930. 26 July 1803.
  7. ↑ James (1837), Vol. 3, p.100.
  8. 1 2 The London Gazette: no. 15362. pp. 496–498. 5 May 1801.
  9. ↑ James (1837), p.93.
  10. ↑ United services magazine, Vol. 1853, Issue 2, p.160.
  11. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 17915. p. 633. 3 April 1823.
References
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