HMS Nimble was a ten-gun armed topsail-cutter built by Philemon Jacobs at his shipyard in Folkestone. Unlike the majority of warships, HMS Nimble was originally ordered by private owners, probably for privateering, so the records of her construction and design are lost. The vessel was purchased by the Navy Board while still under construction.
Armed cutters like HMS Nimble were in widespread service with both the Royal Navy and with the Revenue Service. They were also the vessel of choice for the many British and French privateers operating in the English Channel and the North Sea. Fast and manoeuvrable, they were the 18th and 19th century equivalent of a Second World War Motor Torpedo Boat or Motor Gun Boat, or one of todays Fast Attack Vessels. Their speed and manoeuvrability meant that they were able to outsail pretty much anything else afloat. Their performance and small size meant that they could operate very close inshore and as such, they were used for patrolling inshore waters and raiding. Their seaworthiness meant that they could make quite long voyages. An example of this is the fact that Nelson's fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar included one such vessel.
An model of an unknown armed topsail-cutter. HMS Nimble would have been virtually identical.
HMS Nimble was purchased by the Navy Board from Philemon Jacobs on Friday 6th July 1781, for service in the Royal Navy. At the time, the American War of Independence was at it's height. The war on mainland America had been lost with the surrender of General the Lord Cornwallis after the Royal Navy had failed to secure the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Britain was at war with France, Spain and Holland and was engaged in a struggle to maintain control of the Caribbean as well as a general blockade of the coast of Europe from Italy all the way around to the Netherlands.
After she was launched at Folkestone, she was taken to the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness and was coppered as well as being fitted with her guns, her single mast and associated rigging. On completion, HMS Nimble was a tiny vessel of 168 tons. She was 57ft 4in long on her main deck and 27ft 4in wide across her beam. She was armed with 10 x 4pdr long guns on her main deck and 12 half-pounder swivel guns dotted around her bulwarks and in her fighting top. She commissioned with Mr Gabriel Bray appointed as her Lieutenant-in-Command and was sent to the Downs off Deal to patrol the English Channel to protect British shipping against attacks by Dutch and French privateers. Coppering and fitting her out cost £1,276,13s,4d. She was manned by a crew of 55 men and boys.
Lieutenant Bray would have been the only commissioned officer aboard and he would have been assisted by a Midshipman and a Warrant Officer in the position of Clerk-in-Charge. The Clerk-in-Charge combined the role of Purser with that of Commanding Officers Clerk. She would have carried a Masters Mate to assist the officer commanding the vessel in the day to day navigation and sailing of the vessel and a Surgeon's Mate to look after the day to day healthcare needs of the crew. Lieutenant Bray's previous appointment had been in command of another armed cutter, HMS Sprightly.
In May 1783, HMS Nimble underwent a short refit at Sheerness. During this, her firepower was increased by an order of magnitude with the replacement of her 4pdr guns with 10 x 18pdr carronades. This would have had no effect on the her performance since an 18pdr carronade weighed about the same as a 4pdr long gun and could hurl a ball over a similar distance. With her new guns, she was capable on paper at least, of taking on and defeating enemy vessels much larger than herself.
The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris (1783) on 3rd September. With large numbers of the great ships of the line and frigates being paid off into the Ordinary and with many smaller vessels being sold into merchant service, thousands of sailors of all ranks found themselves out of work. HMS Nimble escaped the post-war drawdown of the fleet and was engaged in the years after the war in supporting the Revenue Service in hunting down smugglers and pirates operating in British coastal waters.
Between October 1786 and June 1787, HMS Nimble underwent repairs at Sheerness.
France had been left bankrupt by the American War of Independence and during the remainder of the 1780s, more than half of the French Government's revenue was being spent on servicing the debts they had run up during the war. The British on the other hand, whilst they had spent a vast sum of money on the war, could easily afford to make payments against their debt. The net result of this was that the French people were suffering terrible hardships and in 1789, this led to them overthrowing the French monarchy in the Revolution. The Revolution had led to the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy in France, but a power struggle between the King, Louis XVI and the Revolutionary Government had led to a state of near-anarchy in France. Eventually, more militant elements in the Revolutionary Government gained the upper hand and in January 1793, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were executed. In February 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. In the years between the Revolution and the declaration of war, thousands of French refugees were attempting to flee to Britain and this led to an increase in piracy in the English Channel and North Sea. This was because many of the refugees were wealthy aristocrats and were vulnerable to the kind of unscrupulous thieving scum with the means to rob them on the high seas. HMS Nimble would have been kept busy in protecting the cross-channel refugees until the outbreak of war put a stop to it.
Lieutenant Bray remained in command of HMS Nimble until she paid off for her refit in 1786 and on being recommissioned in 1787, Lieutenant James Rogers took command. He remained in command until 1790 when he was replaced by Lieutenant John Smith. Lieutenant Smith was in command of HMS Nimble when on 22nd June 1793 in company with the frigate HMS Ceres of 32 guns, she captured the French privateer Le Petit Victiore in the North Sea.
HMS Nimble in pursuit of a similar French vessel. This picture is also useful to illustrate the sheer amount of sail carried on a topsail-cutter's single mast.
In 1795, Lieutenant James Lloyd assumed command. During Lieutenant Lloyd's tour of duty, HMS Nimble had a run of success. Also during this period, her area of operations shifted to the Dorset coast. On 7th March 1797 off St Albans Head, near Swanage in Dorset, HMS Nimble captured the French privateer cutters Bonheur, and L'Impromptu, the pursuit of one of which is pictured above. On 8th January 1798, HMS Nimble recaptured the merchant vessel Favorite.
The report from HMS Nimble about her capture of the two French privateer cutters:
"
Be pleased to inform my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that I sailed from Dartmouth the 6th Instant with a Convoy for the Downes. Yesterday morning, about Seven O'Clock, off St. Aldan's Head, I captured a French Privateer Cutter, called L'Impromptu, Citizen L'Eccuyer, Commander, with Four Swivels, Plenty of Small Arms., Cutlasses etc and Thirty-one Men; sailed from Cherbourg the preceding Night, but had taken nothing. She has the Ann of Dartmouth on her Stern her original Name, and was taken away from Brixham about six Weeks ago by some French Prisoners. Discovering another suspicious Cutter in Chace of a Sloop, I immediately hauled after her, and made the Signal for my Convoy (as the Weather seemed variable, and little Wind to the Southward) to run in through the Needles. About Four PM I came up with the Chace; She is named Le Bonheur, Citizen Burnel, Commander, with Two Three-Pounders; Two Swivels, Small Arms, Cutlasses and Twenty-four Men. The Cutlasses in both Vessels were ground as sharp as Razors. She has the Mary of Dartmouth on her Stern, but French built, sailed in Company with the other, and had taken nothing. I immediately took her in tow, and shall proceed to Spithead to get rid of the Prisoners.".
Almost exactly a year later on 10th January 1799, one of HMS Nimble's boats pursued a French privateer off Dartmouth, but the French vessel escaped capture. On 23rd February 1801, HMS Nimble captured the French privateer Buonaparte of 14 guns in mid-channel.
In April 1802, Lieutenant Lloyd was replaced in command by Lieutenant Jeremiah Coghlan. His previous appointment had been in command of the 12-gun armed topsail-cutter HMS Viper. He had distinguished himself in that vessel when he led a raid into the French base at Port Louis near Lorient and despite being stabbed in the leg with a pike, he and his men suceeded in overwhelming a French crew much greater in numbers than his own men and captured the French gun-brig Cerbere. Lieutenant Coghlan remained in command until October 1804, when HMS Nimble paid off for a refit at Plymouth.
The work on HMS Nimble at Plymouth was completed in January 1805. When completed, her appearance was completely different. She had been converted into small brig-sloop of ten guns. This entailed completely rearranging her sailing rig from being a single-masted vessel to a vessel with two masts. The reason for this change of sailing rig was because the Admiralty felt that the single mast made the vessel too vulnerable to being completely disabled by a single hit in the wrong place. The Armed Cutter was being phased out of service and replaced with similarly sized and armed, two-masted brig-sloops.
By 1808, HMS Nimble's area of operations had again moved, this time to the Nore. In early 1808, HMS Nimble ran aground in Stangate Creek in the River Medway. Although she was floated off and appeared to be undamaged, she was sold into private hands (probably to a privateer) on 9th April 1808.
