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HMS Allegiance (1779)

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HMS Allegiance was the American vessel King George, which the British captured in 1779 and brought into the Royal Navy as a sloop armed with fourteen 6-pounder guns. The French captured her in 1782, and the British recaptured her in 1783, but did not take her back into service.

Origins

King George is an improbable name for an American vessel during the American War of Independence. She was probably a British vessel that Americans had captured, and that the British recaptured before she had been renamed. There are at least two candidate vessels, with one in particular being the British privateer brigantine King George, of 14 guns, Captain Stanton Hazard, that the Connecticut sloop Revenge captured in August 1779. However, currently there is insufficient information to give a definite answer, positive or negative.

Career

The Royal Navy commissioned Allegiance under Commander David Phips (or Phipps), an American Loyalist.

On 24 February 1781, Allegiance entered Frenchman Bay, Maine, and put a landing party ashore at Point Harbour. They captured Captain David Sullivan, brother of Major-General John Sullivan, of the Continental Army, and James Sullivan, later governor of Massachusetts.[1]

The highpoint of Allegiance's career occurred in the Action of 21 July 1781. Allegiance was one of three Royal Navy ships and two armed vessels escorting a convoy of 13 unarmed merchant vessels carrying coal. The escorts comprised frigate Charlestown, the two sloops Allegiance and Vulture, the armed transport Vernon, and Jack, another small armed ship.[2] Vernon was carrying troops from the 70th Regiment of Foot, who were to work in the coal mines.[3]

The convoy was off the harbour of Spanish River, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (present-day Sydney, Nova Scotia) when it came under attack from two French frigates: Astrée (38), commanded by La Pérouse, and Hermione (34), commanded by Latouche Tréville. The French captured Jack. Charlestown reportedly struck to the French, but they were unable to take possession. The French lost six men killed and 34 wounded; the British lost some 17 or so men killed, including Captain Henry Francis Evans of Charlestown, and 48 wounded. Allegiance was not heavily engaged and lost only one man killed and three men wounded.[2] The merchant vessels entered Spanish river safely. Charlestown and the sloops sailed back to Halifax,[4] under the overall command of Phips, in Allegiance.[3]

In separate later engagements the French frigates captured three merchant vessels and recaptured the privateer Thorn.

Fate

Allegiance was anchored in Boston harbour on 6 August 1782 when Admiral the Marquis de Vaudreuil sailed in with ten ships-of-the-line. Allegiance was unable to escape and so Phips surrendered to the French 74-gun Northumberland.[5] The French Navy bought her in November or December.[6]

On 14 October 1782, the sloop Tartar, tender to Allegiance, libeled the sloop Sally in the Halifax Vice admiralty court.[7]

Pegasus recaptured Allegiance on 23 January 1783. The French were using her as a transport and she was carrying 200 troops.[8] The British apparently took her back to Jamaica but did not take her back into service.

Citations and references

Citations

  1. ^ McBurney (2016), p.111.
  2. ^ a b Clowes et al. (1897-1903), Vol. 4, pp.71-2.
  3. ^ a b Tennyson & Sarty (2000), p.18.
  4. ^ Brown (1899), p.41.
  5. ^ Hepper (1994), p.68.
  6. ^ Demerliac (1996), p.115, #812.
  7. ^ Vice admiralty court (1911), p.74.
  8. ^ "No. 12432". The London Gazette. 15 April 1783. p. 3.

References

  • Brown, Richard (F.G.S.) (1899) The coal fields and coal trade of the island of Cape Breton. (Maritime Mining Record Office).
  • Clowes, W. Laird, et al. (1897-1903) The royal navy: a history from the earliest times to the present. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co.; London: S. Low, Marston and Co.).
  • Demerliac, Alain (1996) La Marine De Louis XVI: Nomenclature Des Navires Français De 1774 À 1792. (Nice: Éditions OMEGA). ISBN 2-906381-23-3
  • Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
  • McBurney, Christian (2016) Abductions in the American Revolution: Attempts to Kidnap George Washington, Benedict Arnold and Other Military and Civilian Leaders. (McFarland). ISBN 978-1476663647
  • Tennyson, Brian Douglas, & Roger Sarty (2000) Guardian of the Gulf: Sydney, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic Wars. (University of Toronto). ISBN 978-0802085450
  • Vice Admiralty court: American vessels captured by the British during the revolution and war of 1812; the records of the Vice-admiralty court at Halifax, Nova Scotia. (1911) (Salem, Mass.: The Essex institute).
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