HMS Zebra (1780)

In June 1793 Commander Robert Faulknor recommissioned Zebra. He sailed her for the Leeward Islands on 26 November.[4]

In 1794, Zebra participated in the capture of Martinique by the expeditionary force under the command of Admiral Sir John Jervis and Lieutenant General Sir Charles Grey.

In February 1794 the English attacked Martinique. By 20 March, only Fort Bourbon and Fort Royal still held out. Jervis ordered the third rate ship of the line HMS Asia (64 guns), and the Zebra to take Fort Saint Louis. Asia was unable to get close, and so Commander Faulknor went in without Asia's help.[13] Despite facing heavy fire, Faulknor ran Zebra close under the walls. He and his ship's company then used Zebra's boats to land. The British stormed the fort and captured it. Zebra lost only her pilot killed and four men wounded.[13] Meanwhile the boats of the British fleet captured Fort Royal and two days later Fort Bourbon capitulated.[13]

Jervis promoted Faulknor to post-captain and gave him command of the French 28-gun sixth-rate frigate Bienvenue, which the British had captured at Fort Royal and which Jervis renamed Undaunted in Faulknor's honour.[14] In 1847, the feat earned the remaining survivors of Zebra's crew the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp "Zebra 17 March 1794". The crew also qualified for the clasp "17 Mar. Boat Service 1794" for the capture of the French frigate Bienvenue and other vessels in Fort Royal Bay.

In March Commander Richard Bowen replaced Faulknor, only to be replaced in April by Lieutenant Lancelot Skynner. Commander George Vaughn replaced Skynner within the month.[4] On 14 April 1794 Zebra was present at the capture of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe.[15]

Zebra returned to Fort Royal on 4 December with the French schooner Carmagnols, which she had taken on 30 November off Saint Lucia. Carmangnole had a crew of 35 men and was armed with 10 guns.[16] French records show that Carmagnole was a schooner that the French Navy had commissioned in 1793 at Guadeloupe. Zebra had taken her after having run her ashore on La Désirade.[17]

The captures of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint Lucia yielded prize money for the captains and crews of the vessels involved, and for the army units.[lower-alpha 1]

Early in 1795, Zebra, under Captain Skinner, supported the British Army in suppressing an insurrection by the indigenous Caribs on St Vincent. Then Mermaid captured the 10-gun Brutus off Grenada on 10 October 1795, followed by the 18-gun French corvette Républicaine on 14 October 1795. Zebra, under the command of Commander Norborne Thompson, shared in the prize money by agreement.[21]

In January 1796, Commander David M'Iver assumed command.[8] Shortly thereafter, Alarm and Zebra captured a privateer and recaptured two schooners.[4][22] On 12 September Zebra, under Commander John Hurst, captured the Victoire between Grenada and Tobago.[23] Victoire was armed with six guns and had a crew of 65 men. She was eight days out of Guadeloupe and had captured a sloop from Barbados with a cargo of provisions for Martinique. Lapwing had recaptured the sloop off Marie-Galante.[23] At some point Zebra captured the Spanish ship Santa Maria Magdalena.[24]

Early in 1797 Admiral Henry Harvey sent Zebra to Tobago to gather a detachment of troops.[25] Zebra then rendezvoused with Harvey and his flotilla at the island of Carriacou, in the Grenadines, for the invasion of Trinidad. The flotilla sailed from Carriacou on 15 February and arrived off Port of Spain on the 16th.[25] At Port of Spain they found a Spanish squadron consisting of four ships of the line and a frigate, all under the command of Rear-Admiral Don Sebastian Ruiz de Apodaca. Harvey sent Zebra and some of the other smaller ships to protect the transports and anchored his own ships of the line opposite the Spanish squadron. At 2am on 17 February the British discovered that four of the five Spanish vessels were on fire; they were able to capture the 74-gun San Domaso but the others were destroyed.[25][lower-alpha 2] Later that morning General Sir Ralph Abercrombie landed the troops. The Governor of Trinidad, José Maria Chacón, surrendered the next day.[25] Zebra shared with the rest of the flotilla in the allocation of £40,000 for the proceeds of the ships taken at Trinidad and of the property found on the island.[26]

Hurst died in March 1797.[4] It is not clear who sailed Zebra back to Britain for paying off and laying up.

Between March and April 1798, Wells & Co. converted Zebra to a bomb vessel at a cost of £4,319. She then spent April through June at Deptford Dockyard undergoing a full conversion, which cost £7,392. Commander Thomas Sparke recommissioned her in April.[4]

On 28 August 1799 Zebra was with the British fleet that captured the Dutch hulks Drotchterland and Brooderschap, and the ships Helder, Venus, Minerva, and Hector, in the Nieuwe Diep, in Holland.[lower-alpha 3] The capture of these vessels was part of the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland and preceded by two days the Vlieter Incident in which a large part of the navy of the Batavian Republic, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrendered to the British navy on a sandbank near the Channel known as De Vlieter, near Wieringen. Zebra was also among the vessels sharing in the prize money from the Dutch vessels of the Vlieter Incident.[28]

In December 1799 Zebra was under Commander Edward Sneyd Clay in the North Sea.[4] Zebra's, next major campaign was the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. She suffered no casualties.[29] In 1847, Zebra's surviving crew qualified to receive the Naval General Service Medal with the clasp "Copenhagen 1801".