HMS Lark (1794)
| History | |
|---|---|
 UK
|
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| Name: | HMS Lark |
| Ordered: | 18 February 1793 |
| Builder: | Thomas Pitcher, Northfleet |
| Laid down: | May 1793 |
| Launched: | 15 February 1794 |
| Completed: | 22 April 1794 at Woolwich Dockyard |
| Commissioned: | March 1794 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | 16-gun Cormorant-class sloop |
| Tons burthen: | 426 61⁄94 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 29 ft 9 in (9.1 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 9 ft (2.74 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Sloop |
| Complement: | 121 |
| Armament: | 16 x 6-pounder guns + 12 x ½-pounder swivels |
HMS Lark was a 16-gun ship sloop of the Cormorant class, launched in 1794 at Northfleet. She served primarily in the Caribbean, where she took a number of prizes, some after quite intensive action. Lark foundered off San Domingo in August 1809, with the loss of her captain and almost all her crew.
Lark was commissioned in March 1794 under Commander Josias Rowley. Later that year Commander Francis Austen, who would go on to rise to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, served on her when she was part of a fleet that evacuated British troops from Ostend and Nieuwpoort after the French captured the Netherlands. In 1795, the Lark was part of the squadron under Commodore Payne that escorted Princess Caroline of Brunswick to England. That same year she was part of the British naval force that supported the invasion of France by a force of French émigrés.
n January 1795 Commander William Ogilvy recommissioned her. On 21 March 1796, Lark joined the 32-gun frigate Ceres, Captain James Newman-Newman, in providing support to an unsuccessful attack by British troops from Port-au-Prince on the town and fort of Léogane on the island of Hispaniola.
Commander James Hayes was appointed captain of Lark in 1798. In late 1798 or early 1799, while on the Jamaica station, boats from the 98-gun second rate Queen and Lark, under the temporary command of Lieutenant Hugh Cooke, cut out a schooner of four guns from Port Nieu in the West Indies. During this period, Lark, with Jamaica captured two merchant vessels and destroyed one, and Lark alone destroyed another.
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