HMS Eurydice (1781)

Wilson sailed initially to the Leeward Islands, arriving in Frigate Bay, St Kitts on either 25 or 26 January 1782. Eurydice was present at the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782, and then returned to Britain carrying the dispatches.

She came under the command of Captain George Courtnay in April 1782, under whom she served in the English Channel and off the Channel Islands. She joined John Elliot’s squadron in Autumn 1782 and on 14 October 1782 she captured the French Amis off Île de Batz.

Eurydice was paid off between 1782 and 1783 but recommissioned in April 1783. An 18-year-old Fletcher Christian, later to be the instigator of the mutiny on the Bounty,[2] signed on aboard HMS Eurydice on 25 April 1783 at Spithead. She was the first Royal Navy ship that Christian signed on to.[3]

Eurydice's next posting was to the East Indies, to which she sailed on 10 April 1783. On 24 May 1784, in Madras, Christian was promoted to Acting Lieutenant and Watch Leader.

Eurydice returned to Britain and was again paid off in July 1785, and spent between January and April 1786 undergoing a Small Repair at Woolwich Dockyard at a cost of £2,290. She was fitted for sea at Woolwich at a cost of £3,386 between May and July 1788, during which she was recommissioned in June 1788 under Captain George Lumsdaine.

Lumsdaine sailed for service in the Mediterranean on 27 November 1788. With war with Revolutionary France looming she was fitted out by Wells & Co for £1,856 between February and March 1793, and then at Woolwich for a further £3,507 between March and June 1793. Eurydice was then recommissioned under Captain Francis Cole in April 1793.

On 8 June 1794, Eurydice, along with the 36-gun Crescent, the 32-gun Druid, and six smaller vessels, all under the command of Sir James Saumarez were sent from Plymouth to reconnoitre the French coast. Off the north-west coast of Guernsey they encountered the two 50-gun French razees – Scévola and Brutus – the two 36-gun frigates Danaé and Félicité, and a 14-gun brig. Saumarez ordered Eurydice, his slowest ship, into port to avoid her capture and then lured the French ships into range of Guernsey's shore-based guns. He then turned across the line of the French ships and through a narrow passage between the rocks, which enabled him to escape. A memorial plaque at Castle Cornet in St. Peter Port, Guernsey, depicts the encounter.[5]

Eurydice was at Plymouth on 20 January 1795 and so shared in the proceeds of the detention of the Dutch naval vessels, East Indiamen, and other merchant vessels that were in port on the outbreak of war between Britain and the Netherlands.[6]

Eurydice came under the command of Captain Thomas Twysden in 1795, with Twysden being succeeded by Captain Richard Bennet in 1796. During this time she operated on convoy and cruising duties. Harsh treatment of the crew led to considerable unhappiness aboard the ship. On 24 April the crew unanimously put their names to a petition to Admiralty, accusing the First Lieutenant and the master's mate of conduct "so tyrannical that such officers are a disgrace to the service."[4]

Admiralty convened a court martial to try the sailor suspected of drafting the petition, but he was acquitted as there was insufficient evidence that it was in his handwriting. No charges were laid against the officers of the ship, but Captain Bennett was removed from his command and the ship placed in ordinary until a replacement was found.[7]

Eurydice was recommissioned in August 1796 under Captain John Talbot and was deployed in the North Sea. She captured the French privateer Sphinx on 15 December 1796, the 14-gun Flibustier on 6 February 1797 and Voligeur on 7 March. The next day she was in sight, as were Fairy and hired armed cutter Grace, when Racoon captured the galiot Concordia.[8]

On the morning of 10 November 1799 Eurydice was some 9 miles south-east of Beachy Head, when she sighted a schooner and a brig. The schooner made off as soon as she saw the ship and the brig hove to and hoisted her ensign upside down. She reported that she had been attacked by the schooner and that one of her men was badly wounded. Talbot sent his surgeon, Mr Price, on board the brig and made sail after the privateer. The sloop Snake joined in the chase later in the morning. Halfway through the afternoon Eurydice came nearly within gunshot of the privateer which bore up and tried to cross Snake. When this manoeuvre failed, the vessel lowered her sails and surrendered. She was the Hirondelle of Calais, commanded by Pierre Merie Dugerdin with a crew of 50 men, one of whom was found to be an Englishman. She was armed with fourteen 3 and 4-pounders and had sailed on the Saturday morning. The brig Eurydice had recaptured was the collier Diana, from Sunderland bound for Portsmouth. Her wounded man was brought on board Eurydice where the surgeon had to remove an arm.[9]

On 29 April 1800 the gun-vessel Assault recaptured the brig Adventure, of London, while Eurydice and Childers were in sight.[10]

Eurydice was refitted at Portsmouth and in January 1801 came under the command of Captain Walter Bathurst. Bathurst captured the privateer Bougainville, of Saint Malo, in the Atlantic on 8 May 1801. She was under the command of Jaques le Bon, had a crew of 67 men, and was armed with 14 guns of different calibre. She was out three days and had made no captures.[11]

Eurydice sailed for the East Indies on 20 October 1801.

After her return to Britain she was refitted in 1803, and commissioned in September 1803 under Captain John Nicholas. Under Nicolas she escorted a convoy to Quebec, departing Britain on 16 May 1804.