French Frigate Weser (1812)

The French frigate ''Weser'', or ''Wezer'' was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy launched in 1812 in Amsterdam. The British Royal Navy captured her on 21 October 1813. As HMS ''Weser'' she served in North American waters and then was sold for breaking up in September 1817.

Origin

''Weser'' was designed by Sané.

Capture

On 30 September 1813 ''Weser'', under the command of ''captaine de vaisseau'' Cantzlaar, ''Chevalier de L'ordre Imperiale de la Reunion'', sailed from the Texel for the North Sea. There she captured two Swedish ships before a gale on the 16th took away her main and mizzen mast. Two days later , Commander Colin Macdonald, encountered her 60 leagues west of Ushant, making her way towards Brest under jury main and mizzen masts. Rather than engage ''Weser'' and risk being crippled and so unable to follow her given the weather, Macdonald decided to follow her.

Fortuitously, on 20 October, , Commander J.J. Gordon Bremer, arrived and Macdonald and Bremer decided to attack ''Weser''. They engaged her for about an hour and a half before they had to withdraw to repair their rigging. At about this time a third British vessel, the 74-gun third rate, , Captain Christopher Cole, came up. Bremer joined Cole and informed him of the situation while ''Scylla'' remained with ''Weser''.

The next morning, as ''Rippon'' and ''Royalist'' sailed towards ''Scylla'' to renew their attack, ''Weser'' sailed towards ''Rippon'' and struck, after first firing two broadsides towards ''Scylla''. ''Scylla'' suffered only two men wounded in the entire engagement. ''Royalist'' suffered more heavily, having two men killed and nine wounded. ''Weser'' lost four men killed and 15 wounded.

Royal Navy

The Navy commissioned HMS ''Weser'' in March 1814 under Commander Thomas Ball Sulivan as a troopship, armed en flûte. She underwent fitting at Plymouth for that role between February and April.

In June she was part of a convoy, ''Royal Oak'', ''Diadem'', ''Dictator'', ''Weser'', ''Trave'', ''Thames'', ''Menelaus'', and ''Pactolus'', with 2,852 troops of General Ross' brigade (WESER carried 383), and four transports with horses, forage and rockets, which sailed for America, where she was actively employed until the conclusion of the war.
Commander Sulivan commanded a division of boats and tenders at the destruction of Commodore Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Bay Flotilla in the Patuxent River on 22 August 1814.

Commander Sullivan was promoted to post captain on 19 October. Under the rules of prize-money, the troopship ''Weser'' shared in the proceeds of the capture of six American vessels in the Battle of Lake Borgne on 14 December 1814.Commander Bartholomew Kent assumed command of ''Weser'' on 22 January 1815. ''Weser'' was present at the capture of Mobile, Alabama. She then brought back to England from Quebec the sailors that had been serving on the Canadian Great Lakes. Kent paid ''Weser'' off at Portsmouth on 27 October.

On 21 October 1815 Commander Daniel Lawrence was appointed captain of ''Weser''. He was promoted to post captain on 2 September 1816.

Fate

The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" offered "Weser, of 38 guns and 1081 tons", lying at Portsmouth, for sale on 3 April 1817. She finally sold at Portsmouth to Mr. Bailey for £1,500 on 17 September 1817.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Weser (1812)
Age of Sail frigates of France
1812 ships
Pallas-class frigates (1808)
Ships built in France
Captured ships
Fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy
War of 1812 ships of the United Kingdom