HMS Porcupine (1777)

History
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Porcupine
Ordered:	21 June 1776
Awarded:	25 June 1776
Builder:	Edward Greaves, Limehouse
Laid down:	July 1776
Launched:	17 December 1777
Completed:	14 February 1778
Commissioned:	December 1777
Fate:	Broken up at Woolwich in April 1805
General characteristics
Class & type:	24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship
Tons burthen:	519 ^59⁄94 (bm)
Length:	114 ft 3 in (34.82 m) (overall) 94 ft 2 in (28.70 m) (keel)
Beam:	32 ft 2 ^1⁄2 in (9.817 m)
Draught:	7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) 11 ft (3.4 m)
Depth of hold:	10 ft 3 in (3.12 m)
Sail plan:	Full-rigged ship
Complement:	160
Armament:	s built Upper deck: 22 x 9-pounder guns QD: 2 x 6-pounder guns

HMS Porcupine was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1777 and broken up in 1805. During her career she saw service in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.

Construction and commissioning

The Porcupine cost £5,443.0.11d to build, plus £4,604.13.8d for fitting and coppering. She was commissioned under her first captain, William Finch, in December 1777.

Service

On 29 September 1778, Porcupine, captain William Clement Finch, captured the French East Indiaman Modeste in the Bay of Biscay. Modeste, of 1000 tons, 26 guns and 95 men, was returning from China and richly laden. Her cargo was valued at £300,000, half of which was insured with English underwriters. Modeste became the Indiaman Locko, which later made three voyages for the British East India Company.

On 15 March 1779, the British warships Apollo, Porcupine, and Milford captured the French privateer cutter Tapageur.^[1] The Royal Navy took her into service under existing name.

She came under the command of Captain Sir Charles Knowles around February 1780 and fought an action against two 36-gun xebecs off Valencia on 22 July 1781.^[2] On 30 July 1780 she and the sloop HMS Minorca engaged the French frigate Montréal, the former British frigate HMS Montreal, off the Barbary coast. The two-hour engagement was indecisive and action was broken off.^[2][3]

In 1788, Porcupine took part in commemorations marking the hundredth anniversary of the siege of Derry.^[4]

Notes

1. The London Gazette: no. 12016 . p. 4. 21 September 1779.
2. Winfield. British Warships of the Age of Sail. p. 190.
3. Henry G. Bohn, "Battles of the British Navy", Joseph Allen, ESQ. R.N., Volume 1, 1853, pp.307
4. Carlo Gebler "The siege of Derry", pp.324

References

• Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714-1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.
• Gebler, Carlo (2005) The siege of Derry, a history Little, Brown ISBN 978-0-316-86128-1.