HMS Milbrook (1798)
| History | |
|---|---|
 UK
|
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| Name: | HMS Milbrook |
| Ordered: | 1797 |
| Builder: | Hobbs & Hellyer, Redbridge |
| Laid down: | 1797 |
| Launched: | 1798 |
| Fate: | Wrecked 1808 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Experimental design |
| Tonnage: | 148 (bm) |
| Length: |
|
| Beam: | 21 ft 0 in (6.4 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 9 ft 8 in (2.9 m) |
| Sail plan: | Schooner |
| Complement: | 50 |
| Armament: | 16 x 18-pounder carronades; later 12 |
HMS Milbrook (or Millbrook) was one of six vessels built to an experimental design by Sir Samuel Bentham. After the Royal Navy took her into service in her decade-long career she took part in one notable single-ship action and captured several privateers and other vessels, all off the coast of Spain and Portugal. She was wrecked on the Portuguese coast in 1808.
Hobbs & Hellyer built six vessels to Bentham's design. Milbrook was a somewhat smaller version of his Dart-class vessels (Dart and Arrow), and of another schooner, Netley. Bentham's designs featured little sheer, negative tumblehome, a large-breadth to length ratio with structural bulkheads, and sliding keels. They were also virtually double-ended.
Lieutenant Matthew Smith commissioned Milbrook in December 1798, She was re-rated as a gunvessel in 1799. In February 1800 Smith wrote that the Barrack-master-general (General Oliver de Lancey) had ordered that she continue to serve the board he headed because she was "extremely fast, in all weathers a good sea-boat, tight as a bottle." Still, she received coppering at Portsmouth in April 1800.
Milbrook was part of Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron and so entitled to share in the proceeds from the squadron's cutting out of the French privateer Guêppe on 30 August from Vigo Bay.
A violent gust of wind drove the frigate Stag on shore on 6 September in Vigo Bay. There was no loss of life, due in large part to Milbrook, which rescued many survivors. Stag's officers blew her up to prevent the French salvaging anything useful, and her crew were distributed amongst the fleet.
On 26 September Milbrook captured the American brig Atlas, while Atlas was sailing between Vigo and Seville.
Some two weeks later, on 13 October, Milbrook engaged a French privateer in a notable but ultimately indecisive action. Milbrook was lying becalmed off Oporto when she sighted a strange sail, apparently a French 36-gun frigate. Smith was escorting two brigs of the Newfoundland fleet and there were other vessels, possibly of that fleet, in the offing. To protect the merchantmen Milbrook sailed to intercept the enemy vessel.
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Wikipedia