HMS Ferret (1784)
| History | |
|---|---|
 UK
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| Name: | HMS Ferret |
| Ordered: | 18 February 1782 |
| Builder: | Andrew Hills, Sandwich |
| Laid down: | February 1783 |
| Launched: | 17 August 1784 |
| Fate: | Sold 16 December 1801 |
 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Ferrett |
| Owner: | Daniel Bennett |
| Acquired: | c. end-1801 |
| Fate: | Last listed in Lloyd's Register in 1816 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Modified Childers-class |
| Type: | Brig-sloop |
| Tonnage: | 201 21⁄94 or 208, (bm) |
| Length: | 78 feet 11 inches (24.1 m) (overall); 60 feet 8 inches (18.5 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 25 feet 0 inches (7.6 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 10 feet 10 1⁄2 inches (3.3 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Brig |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: |
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HMS Ferret was a brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1784 but not completed until 1787. In 1801 the Navy sold her. She then became a whaler, making six whaling voyages to the Pacific between 1802 and 1815. She was last listed in 1816.
Ferret finally underwent fitting for sea at Deptford between February and May 1787, and Commander John Osborne commissioned her in May. Commander Davidge Gould replaced Osborne in September 1788, and in return was replaced by Commander Robert Stopford in December 1789.Ferret was on the Gibraltar station at the time. Stopford was briefly Captain (acting), of Ambuscade, but returned to Ferret when the Admiralty would not confirm the appointment. During the Nootka Crisis, a dispute with Spain over Nootka Sound, Ferret was stationed off Cadiz to reconnoitre the Spanish fleet there. Admiral Joseph Peyton then ordered Stopford and Ferret back to England to report his observations.
Commander Richard Burgess replaced Stopford, and then in January 1791 Commander William Nowell assumed command.
On 30 November 1791 Nowell sailed Ferret for the Jamaica station. There she spent most of her time convoying vessels with supplies that the merchants of Kingston were sending to the white population of San Domingo.
In 1792 there was a civil in San Domingo with between the white and black inhabitants, conducted with great cruelty and atrocities on both sides, some of which Nowell witnessed. That year Captain Thomas McNamara Russell of the 32-gun frigate HMS Diana, on a relief mission to the authorities on Saint-Domingue, received the intelligence that John Perkins, a mulatto (mixed race) British former naval officer from Jamaica, was under arrest and due to be executed in Jérémie for supplying arms to the rebel slaves. Britain and France were not at war and Russell requested that the French release Perkins. The French authorities promised that they would, but didn't. After the exchange of numerous letters, Russell decided that the French were not going to release Perkins. Russell then sailed around Cap-Français to Jérémie and met with Ferret. Russell and Nowell decided that Nowell's first lieutenant, an officer named Godby, would go ashore and recover Perkins whilst the two ships remained offshore within cannon shot, ready to deploy a landing party if need be. Lieutenant Godby landed and after negotiations the French released Perkins.
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Wikipedia