HMS Actif (1794)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Active.

HMS Actif was supposedly the British privateer Active that the French captured in 1793 and that became the French privateer Actif. Iphigenia recaptured Actif on 16 March 1794. The Royal Navy took her into service but she foundered on 26 November. All her crew were saved.

History
Great Britain
Name	Active
Launched	c.1789
Captured	21 May 1793
France
Name	Actif
Acquired	21 May 1793 by capture
Captured	16 March 1794
Great Britain
Name	HMS Actif
Acquired	By capture 1794
Fate	Foundered 1794
General characteristics [1]
Type	sloop
Displacement	c.150 tons (French)[2]
Tons burthen	165, or 100[3] (bm)
Complement	British privateer:40 Royal Navy service:60
Armament	British privateer:12 × 4-pounder guns + 4 × swivel guns[3] French privateer: 6 to 16 guns[2] Royal Navy service:10 × 4-pounder guns

British privateer

British sources state that Active was a Liverpool privateer launched c. 1789.^[1] She was under the command of Captain Stephen Bower (or Bowers), and was sailing under a letter of marque dated 2 May 1793.^[3] The French frigate Sémillante captured this privateer on 21 May 1793.^[4][1][5] At capture, Active was armed with eleven guns and three howitzers.^[2]

There are problems with this story. Bowers's letter of marque describes Active as a brig of 100 tons (bm), not a sloop of 165. More critically, both Williams's account of the capture,^[4] and that in Lloyd's List report that a Guernsey privateer recaptured Active and took her into Guernsey. Lloyd's List further named the re-captor as the privateer Brilliant.^[6]

French service

On 16 March 1794 Iphigenia captured both Actif and Espiegle in the West Indies.^[7]

Royal Navy service and loss

The Royal Navy registered Actif as a sloop on 17 July. However, already by 4 June she was on active service with the Royal Navy, participating in the capture of Port-au-Prince.^[8] Commander John Harvey became her captain on 5 September.^[9]

Harvey was sailing Actif to England when by 24 November she developed leaks while off Bermuda. Even with the crew working the pumps continuously, she took on so much water as her structure weakened that on the 26th she had to make distress signals. HMS St Albans came up and rescued Harvey and his crew. The rescuers left her to founder at 30°9′N 76°58′W.^[10]

Citations

1. Winfield (2008), p. 336.
2. Demerliac (2004), p. 98, n°603.
3. "Letter of Marque, p.47 - accessed 25 July 2017" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
4. Williams (1897), p. 314.
5. Winfield & Roberts (2015), p. 336.
6. "The Marine List". Lloyd's List. No. 2516. 14 June 1793. hdl:2027/uc1.c3049067. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
7. Norie (1842), p. 406.
8. "No. 15133". The London Gazette. 14 May 1799. p. 465.
9. Leslie (1891), p. 91, Vol. 25..
10. Hepper (1994), p. 77.

References

• Demerliac, Alain (2004). La Marine de la Révolution: Nomenclature des Navires Français de 1792 A 1799 (in French). Éditions Ancre. ISBN 2-906381-24-1.
• Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
• Leslie, Stephen (1891). Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder).
• Norie, J. W. (1842). The naval gazetteer, biographer and chronologist; containing a history of the late wars from ... 1793 to ... 1801; and from ... 1803 to 1815, and continued, as to the biographical part to the present time. London: C. Wilson.
• Williams, Gomer (1897). History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque: With an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade. W. Heinemann.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.
• Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S. (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-204-2.