HMS Fort Diamond
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom
|
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| Name: | HMS Fort Diamond |
| Namesake: | Diamond Rock |
| Owner: | Royal Navy |
| Commissioned: | 1804 |
| Out of service: | 23 June 1804 |
| Fate: | Captured |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | sloop |
| Complement: | 30 |
HMS Fort Diamond was a six-gun sloop (or cutter), commissioned in 1804 in Martinique. Her origins are unknown. She captured one French privateer before she herself was lost to a French boarding party in June 1804.
Fort Diamond's primary function was as a tender to the newly established British position at Diamond Rock (nominally commissioned as HMS Diamond Rock). She had a crew of 30 men, volunteers from the 36-gun Fifth Rate Emerald, under the command of Emerald's first lieutenant, Thomas Forest.
On the morning of 13 March 1804, Fort Diamond sailed around the Pearl Rock to attack a French privateer schooner. The schooner, unable to sail into the port of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, had anchored close to a shore battery at Ceron, outside the port.
Emerald created a diversion to distract the battery, sending her boats in another direction. While this was underway Pandour arrived and contributed two boats to the diversion.
Forest's tactic was simply to run Fort Diamond into the privateer at a rate of about nine knots. As Fort Diamond bore down on them, the schooner's crew fired a broadside and discharged some small arms before all 50 or 60 crewmen jumped overboard and swam ashore. (The shore battery, not entirely distracted, also fired on Fort Diamond.) The impact of Fort Diamond hitting the privateer broke the chain that anchored the privateer to shore; the boarding party then cut two cables to free her. Fort Diamond's casualties amounted to two men wounded. The privateer turned out to be the Mosambique, armed with ten 18-pounder carronades, though she was pierced for 14 cannon. She was from Guadeloupe, provisioned for a three-month cruise and was under the command of Citizen Vallentes.
Captain James O'Bryan of Emerald reported that she "seems calculated for the King's Service." The Royal Navy took her into service as Mosambique, but sold her in 1810.
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