HMS Actif (1794)

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Actif
Acquired:	By capture 1794
Fate:	Foundered 1794
General characteristics [1]
Type:	sloop
Tons burthen:	165 (bm)
Complement:	60
Armament:	10 x  4-pounder guns

HMS Actif was a 16-gun French privateer that Iphigenia captured on 16 March 1794. The Royal Navy took her into service but she foundered on 26 November. Fortunately though, all her crew were saved.

Actif was a Liverpool privateer that the French captured in May 1793.^{[1][Note 1]}

On 16 March 1794 Iphigenia captured both Actif and Espiegle.^[4] 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.^[5]

Commander John Harvey became her captain on 5 September.^[6]

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 / 30.150°N 76.967°W.^[7]

Notes, sources and references

Notes

1. This may have been the sloop Active, which the French frigate Sémillante captured on 21 May 1793.^[2] 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 letter of marque described her as a sloop of 100 tons burthen (bm), armed with twelve 4-pounder guns and four swivel guns, and having a crew of 40 men.^[3] The British recaptured Active/Actif and sent her into Guernsey.^[2]

Sources

1. Winfield (2008), p.336.
2. Williams (1897), p.314.
3. Letter of Marque - accessed 15 May 2011.
4. Norie (1842), p.406.
5. The London Gazette: no. 15133. p. 465. 14 May 1799.
6. Leslie (1891), Vol. 25, p.91.
7. Hepper (1994), p.77.

References

• Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
• Leslie, Sir 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).
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.