HMS Eagle (1804)

In early 1805, Eagle , under the command of Captain David Colby, joined the squadron of Rear Admiral Alexander Cochrane in the West Indies . On the evening of April 2, Captain Colby was sent in pursuit of the schooner, which he captured around midnight. It turned out to be Empereur privateer from Guadeloupe , a new, 160-ton copper-clad vessel armed with fourteen 6-pound cannons and 82 crew members on board. She was at sea for 46 days and during this time did not capture a single prize. Subsequently, the schooner was accepted into the Royal Navy as an HMS Hart ^[2] .

In April-July 1806, Eagle , under the command of Captain Charles Rowley, joined the squadron of Rear Admiral Sydney Smith , aimed at countering the French troops invading Italy. The squadron arrived in the Gulf of Naples in early May, and deciding not to shell Naples , moved to Capri , which housed a large French garrison. On May 11, a surrender request was sent to the French commandant of the island, but he refused. Then Smith decided to attack the garrison, sending Eagle to cover the landing. Eagle did not open fire until he came ashore at the distance of a musket shot, after which he opened heavy fire with the support of two Neapolitan mortar boats. The enemy was forced to leave the walls of the fort, which the British took advantage of. As a result of the ensuing attack, the commandant of the fortress was killed and the garrison capitulated. At the same time, Eagle lost 2 people killed and 10 wounded ^[3] .

In July 1809, Eagle took part in the second Dutch expedition , the purpose of which was the destruction of shipyards and arsenals in Antwerp , Ternezen and Vlissingen . August 13 took part in the bombing of Vlissingen ^[4] . Naval bombardment was part of a much larger operation; the British land corps consisted of 30,000 soldiers, whose purpose was to help the Austrians by invading Holland and destroying the French fleet based in the harbor of Vlissingen. The expedition ended unsuccessfully, due to the outbreak of the epidemic, the British were forced to clear Valcheren by December 9th.

On April 10, 1810, the Eagle sailed from Gibraltar to Cadiz . He was in the harbor of the city until March 1811, taking part in the defense of the city from the invasion of the French army. The ship itself did not take part in the hostilities, but part of the crew was sent to gunboats, which fought with the French gunboats. Another happiness of the crew, together with the Marines, was sent to defend Fort Matagord, which the British repulsed for two months. During particularly heavy fighting on April 21 and 22, Eagle lost 9 people killed and 22 wounded. ^[2]

In March 1811, the Eagle was sent to the Adriatic . On the morning of November 27, 1811, 10 miles south of Pesaro, the Eagle discovered three unknown ships and immediately rushed after them in pursuit. They turned out to be two French frigates (40-gun Uranie and 28-gun Corceyre ) and the Scemplone corvette from Trieste . In the ensuing chase, the corvette separated from the rest of the vessels, and Eagle continued to pursue the frigates along the northeastern coast of Italy until about 19:30, when Corceyre , who lost the for- robe from the Eagle fire and whose rigging and sails were also seriously damaged, lowered the flag. Due to serious damage to the prize and an unfavorable wind, Eagle did not pursue Uranie and managed to leave. Corceyre , although it was designed to install 40 guns, carried only 26 long 18-pound guns and two 6-pound guns as retarding guns. On board, besides a crew of 170, there were 130 soldiers and a cargo of grain weighing 300 tons. In battle, he lost three people killed and six or seven wounded; Eagle did not suffer losses ^[5] .

On the evening of September 16, 1812, three boats were sent from Eagle , anchored near Ancona , under the command of Lieutenant Kennon, to capture or destroy the enemy’s merchant convoy. A convoy of 23 vessels was discovered on the morning of September 17 at Goro Harbor, where it was anchored under the protection of two gunboats and a 4-gun coastal battery. Despite the fact that the boats several times ran aground, the British were able to capture a large gunboat and sending her guns to the second gunboat forced her to surrender. After that, all the ships of the convoy of the two, who managed to escape, were captured and ^[6] . Since the British were unable to withdraw all their prizes due to a shortage of people, Lieutenant Thomas Festing, who took command after Lieutenant Kennon was mortally wounded, ordered six ships to be burned, and the remaining 17 were removed from the harbor, including two gunboats. In addition to Lieutenant Cannon, who died on September 22, the British lost one dead, another person was mortally wounded, and three were slightly injured ^[7] .

On April 29, 1813, boats with Eagle and Elizabeth under the command of Lieutenants Mitchell Roberts and Richard Greenaway in Goro Harbor attacked a merchant convoy of seven armed merchant ships loaded with oil. Four of them were immediately captured, and the remaining three were washed ashore under the protection of two coastal batteries, two schooners and three gunboats, which opened fire on the British from all guns. Despite all these difficulties, one ship was hijacked and another was destroyed, while the Bitans did not suffer losses ^[8] .

In July-August 1813, Eagle , as part of Rear Admiral Fremantle's squadron, took part in the attack on the port of Rijeka. On July 3, Eagle attacked one of the coastal batteries defending the city, after which the assault on Rijeka began. Despite the stubborn resistance of the French troops, the British forced them to retreat and by the evening the whole city was in the hands of the British. At the same time, the British lost only one killed and five wounded ^[9] .

In October 1813, Eagle took part in the blockade and subsequent siege of the port of Trieste . British ships carried out the naval cadaver of Trieste, while a detachment of Austrian troops under the command of General Earl Nugent overlaid the city by land. On October 10, a detachment of sailors and marines from the ship landed ashore to take part in the shelling of the fort defending the city, with Captain Rowley commanding one of the batteries on the shore. The fort was captured on October 16, and on October 29 capitulated the French garrison in the city ^[10] .

Eagle returned to Downs in the spring of 1814, and in January 1815 he was sent to Chatham's dock for repair, after which he was transferred to the reserve. In 1830 he had the upper deck cut off and turned into a 50-gun frigate. He remained in reserve until November 1844, when Captain George Martin was assigned to him to serve at a station in the West Indies . From 1848 to 1860, he served as a patrol ship at Milford Haven. Since 1860, he continued to serve as a training ship, in 1919 he was renamed the Eaglet and remained in the role of a training ship until 1926, until it burned down in an accidental fire ^[1] .

• Lavery, B. The Ship of the Line. The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. - Conway Maritime Press, 2003. - Vol. I. - ISBN 0-85177-252-8 .
• Rif Winfield. = British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817. - 2nd edition. - Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2008 .-- ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4 .

• William James The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. - R. Bentley, 1837. - ISBN 0-85177-906-9 .

• HMS Eagle // Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels and a few of their movements
• HMS Eagle // Ships of the Old Navy