HMS Success was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy launched in 1781, which served during the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French captured her in the Mediterranean on 13 February 1801, but she was recaptured by the British on 2 September. She continued to serve in the Mediterranean until 1811, and in North America until hulked in 1814, then serving as a prison ship and powder hulk, before being broken up in 1820.
Ship history
The ship, based on a design by Sir John Williams, Surveyor of the Navy, was ordered by the Admiralty on 22 February 1779, and built at Liverpool by John Sutton, being laid down on 8 May 1779, and launched 10 April 1781.
Service in the American War Success was commissioned in March 1781 under the command of Captain Charles Morice Pole, to serve in the American Revolutionary War, where she made several captures. The first, on 12 August 1781, was in company with Daphne, when they took the Spanish merchant ship St. Sebastian. Then, on 2 October, Success, Daphne, and the cutter , captured the French privateer Eclair. The following year, in the action of 16 March 1782, while escorting the storeship Vernon to Gibraltar, Success fought, captured, and burned the 34-gun Spanish frigate Santa Catalina off Cape Spartel. On 20 June 1782 she sailed with a convoy for Jamaica, and on 3 October 1782 Success and the cutter Pigmy captured the ship Vrouw Margaretha. Success was paid off in November 1783, following the end of the war.
Service in the wars against France She remained in ordinary until November 1790 when a "great repair" began at Gravesend, which was not completed until December 1792, at a cost of £15,938, just in time for the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars. She then began fitting out at Chatham Dockyard, where she was recommissioned in February 1793 under the command of Captain Francis Roberts, and was ready for sea by April.
On 25 August she sailed for the Caribbean, where Roberts died the following year, and on 1 September 1794 the notorious Captain Hugh Pigot was appointed to command her. She captured the French brig Poisson Volant on 30 September 1795. During captain Pigot's tenure, HMS Success was routinely tasked with safely convoying merchant vessels. During this nine month period, Pigot ordered at least 85 floggings, the equivalent of half the crew;subsequently two of these men died from their injuries.Taylor Stephen, Sons of the Waves The Common Seaman in the Heroic Age of Sail 1749 -1840 (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2020), p.275 Author Dudley Pope has pointed out, that beyond the frequency of flogging, was Captain Pigot's "complete lack of balance". He noted for example, in April 1795 a seaman on HMS Success, was given twenty four lashes, for mutiny, one of the worst offenses in the Royal Navy, apart from murder or treason, yet three sailors in the same month, were given twenty four lashes for drunkenness, one of the most common infractions.Pope, p.66 and appendix C, p.343 Like many vessels in the Royal Navy, HMS Success became increasingly dependent on "pressed men" or forcible recruitment. For example, the ship log for August 1795 noted on 28 August "impressed 19 men" and again on 29 August 1795 "Boats employed on impress service - impressed 27 men."HMS Success log, ADM 51/1102, dated 28 and 29 August 1795, British National Archives
On 1 July 1796 while guarding a convoy, the Success collided with American brig Mercury. Captain Pigot became angered over what he considered the negligence of the American vessel, and its captain William Jessup. When Jessup claimed HMS Success was at fault, Pigot became outraged and had his boatswain mate strip Jessup to the waist and flog the American. This hasty action quickly led to an international incident.Pope, Dudley, The Black Ship (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1998), pp.21-23. Although captain Pigot was cleared by a court of inquiry of any wrongdoing, the Admiralty to mollify American opinion, decided to exchange captain Pigot, with the commanding officer of HMS Hermione captain Phillip Wilkinson.Pope, pp.30-31.
From February 1797 the Success was commanded by captain Wilkinson, first serving in the English Channel and in the blockade of Cádiz. She recaptured the brig Providence on 24 September 1797 and shared with and in the capture on 16 January 1798 of the 8-gun French privateer Inconceivable. On 2 June 1798 she sailed for North America, being part of the squadron that captured the Yonge Sybrandt on 12 June 1798.
In May 1799 Captain Shuldham Peard took command of Success, and was sent to serve in the Mediterranean. On 9 June of that year, Success was off Cap de Creus, when Peard spotted a polacca to the north-west. He gave chase, but the vessel took refuge in the harbour of El Port de la Selva, so he sent in his boats to cut her out. After a fierce action, in which Success suffered three killed and nine badly wounded, she proved to be the Bella Aurora, sailing from Genoa to Barcelona with a cargo of cotton, silk and rice, and armed with 10 guns, all 9- or 6-pounders. In his report Peard pointed out that the attack had been carried out in broad daylight by only 43 men against a vessel crewed by 113, protected by boarding netting, and supported from the shore by a small gun battery and a large number of men with muskets. Subsequently, in 1847, a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal marked "9 June 1799" awarded to any surviving members of the action who applied for it. Shortly after, Success was one of the fleet, part of which fought the action of 18 June 1799, in which three French frigates and two brigs were captured.
Success was then employed on the blockade of Malta, during which, on 18 February 1800, she played a crucial role in the capture of the French 74 Généreux, flagship of Rear-Admiral Perrée, Commander-in-Chief of the French naval forces in the Mediterranean, by raking her several times, before she was captured by the ships of the line and . Success made several subsequent captures during the siege. On 28 April 1800 she took the French polacca La Bellone, from Valletta bound for Marseille, laden with cotton. On 25 June she captured the French aviso (or Intraprenant), under the command of Enseigne Louis Podesta, with four guns and a crew of 36 men, carrying provisions from Santa Messa to Valletta. The next day Success captured another aviso, , under Enseigne Jean Pierre Louis Barallier, with the same armament, establishment, and mission as Entreprenant. Unfortunately for Success, she had to share the prize money with a large number of other British warships. The same day she captured the French felucca Fortune, which was apparently unarmed, but carrying provisions on the same route as the two avisos. During the night of 24 August, two French frigates, and , sailed from Valletta harbour, in an attempt to evade the British blockade. However they were seen and pursued, and after chase of several hours, and a running fight with Success, the Diane surrendered to her, and Northumberland. She mounted 42 guns, 18- and 9-pounders, but had a crew of only 114, having left the rest onshore as part of the garrison. Justice, however, escaped under cover of darkness. Finally, on 5 February 1801 she captured the Spanish felucca La Virgen del Rosario.
Capture and service in the French Navy On 9 February 1801, while in the Bay of Gibraltar, Peard observed seven French ships of the line and two frigates, entering the Mediterranean, which he correctly assumed were bound for Egypt to relieve the French army there. Peard set sail in pursuit, intending to overtake them and find Lord Keith, the naval commander-in-chief, to inform him of their location. He caught up with the French squadron off Cape de Gata, and sailed past them during the night. For the next two days the French remained in sight at a distance. A fresh breeze sprang up during the night of the 12th, and Peard attempted to outdistance them, but discovered the French close by the next morning. They gave chase, and Peard set a course west hoping to encounter pursuing British ships. However at noon the wind fell, and the two French frigates crept closer. At 3 p.m. the French opened fire, and Peard, realising that his situation was hopeless, surrendered. When interrogated, Peard falsely claimed that British forces had landed on the coast of Egypt (which did not occur until 8 March), and that Rear-Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, with a powerful squadron, was close by and in pursuit. Ganteaume changed course, and his squadron arrived at Toulon six days later, where Peard and his officers were promptly exchanged, arriving at Port Mahon by cartel on 26 February.
Success was subsequently commissioned into the French Navy as Succès. In July, under the command of Capitaine de frégate Jacques-François-Ignace Bretel, she sailed with the frigates and from Toulon to Elba. On the voyage back, Carrère was captured on 3 August, while Bravoure and Succès escaped.
In September 1801, the British frigate was stationed off Elba. Early on 2 September she alerted , which was anchored off Piombino, to the presence of two French frigates nearby. Phoenix and Minerve set out in pursuit and soon came up and joined them. Pomone re-captured Success while Minerve ran the 46-gun French frigate Bravoure onshore, with her crew of 283 men under the command of Monsieur Dordelin. Bravoure lost her masts and was totally wrecked; she struck without a shot being fired. Minerve took off a number of prisoners, including Dordelin and his officers, in her boats. With enemy fire from the shore and with night coming on, Captain Cockburn of Minerve decided to halt the evacuation of prisoners; he therefore was unwilling to set Bravoure on fire because some of her crew remained on board. Bretel was court-martialed for the loss of his ship, and acquitted on 10 December 1801.
Return to British service By December 1801 Success was back in commission, under the command of Captain George Burlton, but was paid off following the signing of the peace treaty between Britain and France in March 1802. The peace did not last long, with Britain declaring war on France in May 1803. Success, following a refit at Portsmouth Dockyard, was recommissioned in August 1804 under the command of Captain George Scott, formerly of , who commanded her until 13 March 1806, while stationed in the Caribbean.
On 18 April 1806, Captain John Ayscough assumed command of Success. Early on 20 November 1806, while just east of Guantánamo Bay (known as Cumberland Harbour to the British), Ayscough observed a felucca running into Hidden Port. He sent the ship's barge and yawl in pursuit, but on reaching the shore they discovered that about 50 armed men had landed from the felucca, which was lashed to a tree, and had taken a position at the top of a small hill overlooking the beach, upon which they had mounted a single long gun. They fired grape and ball down on the British, killing the First Lieutenant, Mr. Duke, with their first volley. The British withstood the enemy fire for an hour and twenty minutes, suffering seven more men wounded, and having the barge shot through in several places before Lieutenant Spence, then in command, deemed any attempt on the hill a useless sacrifice, so ordered the enemy ship to be towed out, which was achieved under heavy fire. She proved to be the French privateer Vengeur, which had sailed from Santo Domingo on 1 October, but being badly damaged she sank while under tow.