HMS Speedy (1782)

Speedy class brig of the British Royal Navy

HMS Speedy was a 14 gun Speedy class brig of the British Royal Navy. Built during the last years of the American War of Independence, she served with distinction during the French Revolutionary Wars. Built at Dover, Kent, Speedy spent most of the interwar years serving off the British coast. Transferred to the Mediterranean after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, she spent the rest of her career there under a number of notable commanders, winning fame for herself in various engagements and often against heavy odds. Her first commander in the Mediterranean, Charles Cunningham, served with distinction with several squadrons, assisting in the capture of several war prizes, such as the French frigates and Impérieuse. His successor, George Cockburn, impressed his superiors with his dogged devotion to duty. Speedys next commander, George Eyre, had the misfortune to lose her to a superior French force on 9 June 1794. She was soon retaken, and re entered service under Hugh Downman, who captured a number of privateers between 1795 and 1799 and fought off an attack by the large French privateer Papillon on 3 February 1798. His successor, Jahleel Brenton, fought a number of actions against Spanish forces off Gibraltar. Her last captain, Lord Cochrane, forced the surrender of the much larger Spanish frigate El Gamo. A powerful French squadron captured her again in 1801 and Napoleon donated her to the Papal Navy the following year. She spent five years with the Papal Navy under the name San Paolo; she was struck around 1806.

Speedy was one of two brig sloops built to the same design by Thomas King of Dover, Kent. She and her sister ship were constructed to provide small, fast escort vessels with hulls shaped like a cutter, rather than the more seaworthy but slower ship sloop. King had for some time specialised in these types of vessels, and the design capitalised on that experience. Speedy was so named to symbolise this new approach. Ordered on 23 March 1781, she was laid down at King's yard in June that year and launched on 29 June 1782. She moved to Deptford, Kent, to be fitted out and have her hull covered with copper plates between 16 July and 25 October 1782; at her completion she had cost £4,200 7s 3d to build.

Speedy was commissioned under Commander Josias Rogers in May 1783 and was assigned to serve in the North Sea, operating out of the Humber estuary. After four years on this station she was paid off (placed in reserve) in January 1787 and began a refit at Woolwich in April that year. This work was completed by July at a cost of £1,801, and she was recommissioned in May that year under Commander John Maude, still on the Humber station. From November 1790 she was under Commander Richard Lane, who was her captain until she was paid off in October 1791. Speedy then underwent another refit, this time at Deptford between June and December 1792, at a cost of £3,000, and was recommissioned in November 1792 under Commander Charles Cunningham.

Cunningham had previously been serving in the East Indies in command of the 16 gun sloop By the time he returned to take up his new command the French Revolutionary Wars had broken out and he was sent to join Lord Hood fleet in the Mediterranean, arriving there in April 1793. In this action, Speedy sent two boats to board the tartanes while Bedford bombarded Modeste. The French crews of the tartanes attempted to resist and two of their crewmembers were wounded, but the British did not suffer any casualties. Captain and Speedy then sailed to the Gulf of Spezia where they caught another French frigate, Imperieuse, at anchor. Imperieuse was scuttled by her crew, but was subsequently salvaged and recommissioned as HMS Imperieuse. The small fleet was caught in winter storms and several ships were badly damaged, forcing Sutherland and his squadron to seek shelter in nearby ports and to make repairs, with the exception of Speedy, which remained on station. Sutherland ordered Speedy, which was by now running desperately short of water, to Hyères to refit. At the same time, Sutherland sent a complimentary report of Cockburn to Lord Hood. Eyre attempted to escape, but the wind and sea favoured the larger vessels, and Speedy was chased down and captured. Eyre was brought aboard Admiral Martin's flagship and was told that the National Convention had recently ordered that no quarter should be given to the English or Hanoverians, and that had Martin's ship been first alongside, he would have sunk Speedy. The sudden appearance of a British fleet curtailed the interview, and the French hurried back to Gourjean roadstead outside Toulon, taking Speedy and the captured British crew with them. On 25 April the squadron steered for Laöna bay, the commodore having received intelligence that a large convoy, laden with stores for the French army, had anchored off the town of Finale. When the squadron arrived, however, they found only four vessels moored under the guns of some batteries. The shore batteries opened fire on Peterel as she led the boats of the squadron to the attack. Despite the fire, the British were able to capture the four vessels and suffered only three men wounded. On 3 February 1798 Speedy encountered the large privateer Papillon, mounting 18 guns and carrying 160 men, while sailing off Vigo. Papillon attacked Speedy, which had a reduced crew; her master Mr Marshall and 12 men were aboard a Spanish prize Speedy had taken earlier. The two ships fought each other for two days; by the second day Downman had exhausted his supply of shot, and resorted to firing nails and pieces of iron hoop at his opponent. For his efforts in protecting British trade out of Oporto, the merchants there presented him with a letter of thanks, and a piece of plate valued at £50. While sailing off Gibraltar in company with the British privateer Defender on 9 August 1799, Brenton came across three small Spanish warships, mounting twenty 6 pounders in total. The Spanish ran into a small sandy bay and anchored in a line so as to bring their guns to bear simultaneously on the British ships. Speedy and Defender sailed up and down for two hours firing broadsides, but without much effect. The two exchanged a fierce cannonade for three quarters of an hour, after which the Spanish abandoned their ships and made for the shore. Speedy launched her boats to recover the other two, coming under musket fire from the Spanish on the hillside as they did so. The British got both vessels off and took them into Gibraltar, along with two men wounded during the operation. They were driven ashore by the wind, and despite sending boats out, it was impossible to get them off, so they were left to be reduced to wrecks. During the engagement with the gunboats, the guns in the fortress of Gibraltar had not fired in support of Speedy. When Brenton asked why, the Governor of Gibraltar, General Charles O'Hara, replied that he had arranged with the Governor of Algeciras for the guns never to be fired at the gunboats so as not to annoy the inhabitants of the town. His cabin had only 5 feet (2 m) of headroom; when Cochrane wished to shave he had to open a skylight and set his shaving equipment out on the quarterdeck. On another occasion he walked the quarterdeck with Speedys entire broadside, seven pieces of four pounder shot, in his pockets. Three days later, as the convoy passed the island of Montecristo, five rowing boats emerged from one of the island's coves and captured two of the rearmost merchant ships. Cochrane immediately gave chase, and recaptured them early the next morning. On 22 September he captured a large Neapolitan vessel and, on bringing her into Port Mahon, discovered that the Spanish had taken notice of his depredations and were preparing a frigate to capture Speedy. While cruising off Alicante on 21 December, Speedy encountered an enemy frigate, but tricked her into thinking she was a neutral vessel. Cochrane again used this false flag technique to his advantage; on 22 January he was sailing with a convoy of Danish merchantmen under a Danish flag, pretending to escort them. When a 10 gun French ship and 8 gun Spanish brig approached, Cochrane hoisted British colours and attacked, capturing both of them. Then on 24 February Cochrane captured the French naval brig Caroline, of four guns, which had been carrying ordnance stores from Genoa to Alexandria.

Speedy was cruising off Barcelona at dawn on 6 May 1801 when she sighted a large enemy frigate. The frigate, a xebec rigged vessel named El Gamo, carrying 319 men, was armed with 8 and 12 pounder guns and 24 pounder carronades. This amounted to a total broadside of 190 pounds, more than seven times that of Speedy. Furthermore, Cochrane had only 54 men on board; the rest were serving as prize crews. Instead of evading the frigate, Cochrane closed on her, and at 9:30 a. m. Gamo fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. In return Cochrane hoisted American colours. Gamo attempted to fire upon her smaller opponent, but her guns were mounted too high and could not be depressed sufficiently, causing their shot to pass through Speedys sails and rigging. Cochrane on the other hand had mounted the front of his guns on blocks so they could fire upward through Gamos sides. Cochrane then opened fire with his 4 pounders double and treble shotted, their shots passing up through the sides and decks; the first broadside killed the Spanish captain and boatswain. Seeing their disadvantage the Spanish second in command assembled a boarding party, at which Cochrane drew off and pounded their massed ranks with shot and musket fire before drawing in close again. After having their attempts to board frustrated three times, the Spanish returned to their guns. The British rushed Gamo, some boarding from the bow with faces blackened to look like pirates, the rest boarding from the waist. Thinking that their officers had surrendered the ship, the remaining Spanish seamen stopped fighting. The British had lost three men killed and nine wounded, while the Spanish had lost 14 killed and 41 wounded, a casualty list exceeding Speedys entire complement. The British then secured the Spanish prisoners below deck and made their way back to Port Mahon. Stung that he had been beaten by such an inferior foe, the Spanish second in command asked Cochrane for a certificate assuring him that he had done all he could to defend his ship.

Cochrane returned to the coast off Barcelona in June 1801, and joined the 16 gun in attacking a Spanish convoy of 12 merchant ships and five armed vessels anchored under the guns of a large tower. After a sharp action fought between the afternoon of 9 June and the morning of 10 June, the two ships sank or drove ashore all of the ships with the exception of three brigs, which they captured. A formidable French squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Charles Alexandre Léon Durand Linois had left Toulon bound for Cadiz to collect reinforcements for Napoleon's army in Egypt. The French caught up nonetheless, and after narrowly avoiding the broadside of Desaix, Cochrane struck his colours. On returning to Gibraltar he was court martialled for the loss of his ship, and honourably acquitted.

The French took Speedy to Toulon with the fleet, where she became a pawn in Napoleon's efforts at diplomacy with Pope Pius VII, whose presence he wanted at his coronation as emperor. Speedy, by now named Saint Paul and inscribed with the words "Donné par le premier consul Bonaparte au Pape Pie VII" ("Given by the First Consul Bonaparte to Pope Pius VII") in gilt letters on her poop cabin, sailed with an escort from Toulon on 14 December 1802 bound for Civitavecchia as a present to the Pope. She arrived there on 16 December where the Papal Navy took her into service under the name San Paulo. She remained there until being struck c.1806.

Some of Speedys later exploits under Cochrane were used in the plot of the novel Master and Commander, the first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey–Maturin series, though the ship described by O'Brian matches only Speedy spar dimensions and armament, and is named HMS Sophie. Cochrane is replaced in the book by the fictional Jack Aubrey, who repeats many of Cochrane's real life exploits including the defence of a convoy and the recapture of one of its merchants from a privateer, and the capture of a large Spanish frigate, based on the Gamo, but renamed Cacafuego for the novel.