HMS Lynx (1794)

HMS Lynx and HMS Monkey capturing three Danish luggers, 12 August 1809, oil on canvas, 19th century
History
UK
Name:	HMS Lynx
Ordered:	18 February 1793
Builder:	William Cleverley, Gravesend
Laid down:	May 1793
Launched:	14 February 1794
Completed:	30 May 1794 at Woolwich Dockyard
Commissioned:	April 1794
Struck:	sold 28 April 1813
General characteristics
Class and type:	16-gun Cormorant-class sloop
Tons burthen:	426  3⁄94 bm
Length:	108 ft 4 in (33.0 m) (overall) 90 ft 9 in (27.7 m) (keel)
Beam:	29 ft 8 1⁄2 in (9.1 m)
Depth of hold:	9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Sloop
Complement:	121
Armament:	16 × 6-pounder guns 12 × ½-pounder swivel guns

HMS Lynx was a 16-gun ship-rigged sloop of the Cormorant-class in the Royal Navy, launched in 1794 at Gravesend. In 1795 she was the cause of an international incident when she fired on the USRC Eagle. She was at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars took numerous prizes, mostly merchant vessels but also including some privateers. She was also at the second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. She was sold in April 1813.

Lynx was commissioned in April 1794 under Commander Charles Vinicombe Penrose on the Halifax Station. Penrose was promoted to Post-captain on 7 October 1794 and Commander Charles Rowley replaced Penrose in November.

On 17 November 1794, Lynx recaptured the Amphrite.Cleopatra shared in the reward. By agreement, these vessels also shared the prize money with Africa and Thisbe.

On 31 January 1795, Rear-Admiral George Murray, the commander-in-chief on the North America station, sent Lynx, under the command of John Poo Beresford, and the newly-captured former French warship Esperance on a cruise out of Halifax. On 1 March the two vessels captured the Cocarde Nationale (or National Cockade), a privateer from Charleston, South Carolina, of 14 guns, six swivels and 80 men. Esperance and Lynx recaptured the ship Norfolk, of Belfast, and the brig George, of Workington.