HMS Mermaid was a 12pdr-armed 32 gun 5th rate frigate of the Active class, built by the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness.
The Active Class was a group of eight frigates designed by Edward Hunt, Co-Surveyor of the Navy and HMS Mermaid was the only one to be built in a Kent shipyard. The 12pdr-armed 32 gun frigate was, along with the 9pdr-armed 28 gun ship, the dominant type of frigate in the Royal Navy from the 1750s to the 1790s, when they began to be replaced by larger frigates carrying 18pdr guns. The increase in size and firepower of the Royal Navy's frigates happened in response to larger and more powerful French and Spanish frigates which were encountered during the American War of Independence. Despite being obsolete from about 1790, some of the older frigates went on to have very long service careers, serving into the 19th century.
HMS Mermaid was originally ordered from the Royal Dockyard at Woolwich on 27th August 1778 and was laid down there the following month. At the time, France had intervened in the American War of Independence and as a result, the war was rapidly escalating from an effort to put down an armed rebellion to a full-scale, all-out war between the superpowers of the day.
Construction of HMS Mermaid proceeded at Woolwich until the Navy Board cancelled the order and re-ordered the ship from the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. The reasons for this are unclear and it is unclear whether the incomplete ship was broken up on the slipway at Woolwich, her timbers moved to Sheerness and re-assembled there, or whether the ship built at Sheerness was built from scratch. Whatever the case may be, £1,807 had been spent on the ship at Woolwich before the order was cancelled.
HMS Mermaid was laid down again at Sheerness on 29th July 1782 and the ship was launched there on 11th November 1784. By the time the ship was launched, she had cost £12,854. At the time of her launch, the war for which she had been built was over. Instead of having her masts, rigging and guns fitted, the ship was secured to a mooring buoy in the Swale with her hatches and gunports sealed shut and under the care of a skeleton crew, entered the Ordinary.
In June 1790, HMS Mermaid was taken into the dockyard at Sheerness and fitted for sea, with her masts, rigging and guns being fitted. The reason was that Britain and Spain were on the brink of war in what is now known as the Spanish Armament Crisis. This happened as a result of British attempts to establish trading posts on the western coast of Canada, at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. This was in defiance of a Spanish territorial claim to the entire western coastline of both American continents.
HMS Mermaid completed fitting in August 1790 and was commissioned under Captain Cuthbert Collingwood. He came to fame later in his life when he was Second in Command to Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, when he led the British fleet to eventual victory after Nelson had been killed in action. When she was complete, HMS Mermaid was a ship of 692 tons. She was 126ft 2in long on her gundeck and 35ft 5in wide across the beam. The ship was armed with 26 x 12pdr long guns on her gundeck, 4 x 6pdr long guns and 4 x 24pdr carronades on her quarterdeck with 2 x 6pdr long guns and 2 x 24pdr carronades on her forecastle. She was manned by a crew of 250 men, officers and marines.
Active Class PlansFraming Plan:
Sheer Plan and Lines:
A model of HMS Mermaid showing the ship ready for launching:
HMS Mermaid was sent to the Caribbean to reinforce protection for British possessions there should war break out and departed from Sheerness later in August 1790. The Spanish Armament Crisis was resolved peacefully when the new National Assembly in post-revolution France decided that they would not go to war. This forced the Spanish to negotiate and a series of agreements were reached with the British whereby the British would be free to establish trading posts but Spain would retain sovereignty over the area. As a result of the peaceful settlement of the crisis, military tensions eased and HMS Mermaid was recalled from the Caribbean in April 1791 and laid up in the Ordinary once more, this time at Portsmouth.
Up until the end of 1792, the French Revolution had had little impact on Britain, in fact, the British Government supported it, hoping that it would lead to the establishment of a Constitutional Monarchy in France, along the lines of our own. King Louis XVI was an unwilling participant in this and rioting began to break out in French major cities, which escalated to fighting in the Vendee region along the French Biscay coast. With the Republican Jacobin movement headed by Maximilien Robespierre gaining power, the British began to support Royalist forces in France and King Louis attempted to flee Paris to join them. He was caught and imprisoned. Tried and convicted of treason, the King and Queen were executed in Paris in January 1793. The British expelled the French ambassador in protest and France declared war on 1st February.
HMS Mermaid was recommissioned that month, taken into the dockyard at Portsmouth and refitted for sea. The work was complete in May 1793 and on 22nd, HMS Mermaid departed for the Mediterranean under Captain John Trigge. On 27th May 1793, HMS Mermaid captured the French privateer Le General Washington of 20 guns in company with the 28 gun 6th rate frigate HMS Tartar. Three days later, in company with the 32 gun frigate HMS Castor, she took the 16 gun French privateer L'Angelique. The following month, HMS Mermaid took an unknown French privateer of 14 guns.
In August 1793, HMS Mermaid joined a fleet under Admiral Lord Hood supporting French royalist forces holding the city of Toulon. In December 1793, the British were forced to evacuate the city after French republican forces penetrated the defences and took the city.
HMS Mermaid sailed for the Caribbean on 5th May 1794 under a new commander, Captain Henry Warre. On 10th October 1795, HMS Mermaid, in company with the 16 gun ship-sloop HMS Zebra took the French brig Le Brutus of 10 guns. This success was followed up four days later when she took the French lugger Republicain of 18 guns.
The capture of le Brutus by HMS Mermaid:
In February 1796, Captain Charles Davers replaced Captain Trigg, but he only remained in command for two months before he was replaced by Captain Robert Otway. On 8th August 1796, HMS Mermaid caught and engaged the larger French frigate Vengeance of 40 guns off Basseterre, Guadeloupe. The two ships fought each other until HMS Beaulieu, a 40 gun frigate under Captain Francis Laforey approached the scene to render assistance. The Vengeance retired to the protection of the shore battery at Basseterre, but not before she had lost 12 men killed with 26 wounded. HMS Mermaid suffered no casualties.
On 10th December 1796, HMS Mermaid in company with the 28 gun 6th rate frigate HMS Resource took the 16 gun French vessel General Leveau off San Domingo. On 7th March 1797, she took the French privateer La Liberte General.
On 20th April 1797, HMS Mermaid's boats, together with those from HMS Hermione (32), HMS Quebec (32), HMS Drake (14) and HMS Penelope (16), took part in a cutting out operation against French shipping in the harbour at Jean-Rabel in Haiti. Between them, they succeeded in capturing nine enemy ships, without suffering any casualties.
Later in 1797, Captain Davers was replaced in command by Captain James Newman Newman and the ship was reassigned to join the blockade of Lorient in modern day Brittany, France. The new year of 1798 got off to a good start for HMS Mermaid when she captured the 12 gun French privateer Aventure of 12 guns on New Years Day.
On June 29th 1798, HMS Mermaid was patrolling near Belle Isle in company with HMS Jason (38) and HMS Pique (36), when they spotted the French frigate Seine of 38 guns. The enemy ship was returning home from Mauritius with 400 soldiers aboard. The Seine was attempting to make landfall when she spotted the British frigates, which immediately gave chase. HMS Mermaid and HMS Jason headed inshore to prevent the Seine from heading into Lorient while HMS Pique continued after the French ship. At 21:00, HMS Pique opened fire. The two ships then engaged in a running fight until Pique came alongside the Seine at 23:00. The Pique and the Seine then fought it out at point blank range until 01:30 when the British ship's main topmast was shot away. HMS Jason joined the fight, taking over from HMS Pique which was ordered to anchor as she was in danger of drifting ashore. This order was disobeyed and as a result, HMS Pique ran aground. A short while later, HMS Jason also ran aground. On striking the shore, HMS Jason's stern swung around and faced the enemy's broadside, leaving her vulnerable to be raked. At the same time, the Seine also ran aground and came under fire from HMS Pique. Captain Newman, seeing that HMS Jason and HMS Pique were in serious trouble, approached the scene and on seeing the British frigate approaching, the Seine struck her colours and surrendered. The Seine was taken by HMS Mermaid and although HMS Jason was refloated, HMS Pique was damaged beyond repair and was abandoned.
HMS Jason and Seine fight it out.
In the action, HMS Pique suffered 2 men killed with 6 wounded and HMS Jason suffered 7 killed and 11 wounded. Once again, HMS Mermaid suffered no casualties. The Seine suffered terribly in the action with 170 killed and 100 wounded.
On 24th March 1799, HMS Mermaid was in action again, capturing the unarmed French packet vessel Golondrevia off Corunna. That was Captain Newman's last success in command of HMS Mermaid. The following month, he was replaced in command by Captain Robert Oliver and on 1st June 1799 the ship was sent to the Mediterranean. Exactly a year later, patrolling as part of the blockade of Toulon, HMS Mermaid captured the French vessel La Cruelle of 6 guns.
By this time, 12 pdr armed 32 gun frigates like HMS Mermaid were considered obsolete by the Royal Navy and were being progessively replaced by more powerful 18 pdr armed frigates. HMS Mermaid was recalled to the UK when the war was ended by the Treaty of Amiens and paid off into the Ordinary at Woolwich in August 1802. The peace was not to last long. The Napoleonic War broke out in May 1803 and in June, HMS Mermaid was refitted for sea. The work was completed in September 1803 and the ship recommissioned under Captain Askew Hollis and sailed for Jamaica. HMS Mermaid had a mostly quiet time on the Jamaica Station. In 1807, Spain joined France in the war and the declaration of war left a number of British merchantmen trapped in the harbour at Havana. HMS Mermaid forced an entrance to the harbour and successfully escorted the merchantmen out without having to fire a shot.
In August 1807, HMS Mermaid was recalled to Woolwich and underwent repairs before recommissioning under the 28-year old Captain Jacob Major Henniker in March 1809. Jacob Major Henniker was the grandson of John Henniker, who had died in 1803 and is buried in Rochester Cathedral. He had been a wealthy timber and furs merchant who had also owned a shipyard at Chatham where a number of ships had been built for the Royal Navy. On 12th June 1809, HMS Mermaid departed to escort a troop convoy to Portugal to support British efforts to drive the French from the Iberian Peninsular in what is now known as the Peninsular War.
Between October 1810 and February 1811, HMS Mermaid was refitted at Chatham and was converted into an 18 gun troopship. She served in this role in the Mediterranean until she was recalled to Plymouth in 1815 at the end of the war. She was broken up there in November 1815.
