HMS ''Sibyl'' was a 28-gun

sixth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. ''Sibyl'' was renamed HMS ''Garland'' in 1795.

Service history

''Sibyl'' was first commissioned in October 1778 under the command of

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

Thomas Pasley Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, 1st Baronet (2 March 1734 – 29 November 1808) was a senior and highly experienced British Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth century, who served with distinction at numerous actions of the Seven Years' War, America ...

. In February 1781 ''Sybil'' was part of a three ship fleet that gave chase to a 30 ship Dutch convoy, laden with valuable supplies, under escort by Admiral Krull that had departed from

Sint Eustatius Sint Eustatius (, ), also known locally as Statia (), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially " public body") of the Netherlands. The island lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, so ...

, a

neutral port ''Neutral Port'' is a 1940 British war film directed by Marcel Varnel and starring Will Fyffe, Leslie Banks, Yvonne Arnaud, and Phyllis Calvert, with a supporting role for Wally Patch. It was produced and distributed by Gainsborough Pictures a ...

in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

. The fleet intercepted the convoy and after a brief battle, Krull was mortally wounded where his flag ship surrendered to Reynolds. In 1783 ''Sibyl'', Captain Vashon, was in company with and ''Tobago'' when they encountered the American frigate ''Alliance'', which was escorting . An inconclusive engagement developed between ''Sibyl'' and ''Alliance'' that proved to be the last battle of the American Revolutionary War. ''Alarm'' and ''Tobago'' neither participated in the engagement nor captured ''Duc de Lauzun''. ''Sibyl'' was renamed HMS ''Garland'' in 1795.

Loss

In February 1798 Captain J. C. Searle sailed ''Garland'' for the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

. There Captain

James Athol Wood Sir James Athol Wood CB (1756 – July 1829), was an officer of the Royal Navy. After serving on merchant ships for the East India Company from a young age, he entered the Royal Navy in 1774. Wood served in the navy for almost his whole life, a ...

replaced him. Wood received information that a large French ship was anchored off

Port Dauphiné Fort-Dauphin (Malagasy Tolagnaro or Taolagnaro) is a city (''commune urbaine'') on the southeast coast of Madagascar. It is the capital of the Anosy Region and of the Taolagnaro District. It has been a port of local importance since the early 1500 ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

.Hepper (1994), p. 87. He sailed ''Garland'' to investigate but as she approached the vessel on 26 July 1798, ''Garland'' struck a rock and sank before she could be run onshore. Still, the crew was able to take to the boats. Wood then decided to capture the French ship, which turned out to be a

merchantman A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are u ...

armed with 24 guns and carrying a crew of 150 men. The French crew had run their ship ashore at ''Garland''s approach and abandoned her. However, when they saw ''Garland'' run ashore, they tried to retrieve their own vessel. Wood and his boats had the wind and reached the merchantman first. Wood was able to convince the natives to hand most of the Frenchmen over to the British. It was five months before the

sloop-of-war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

arrived to rescue Wood, his crew, and his

prisoners-of-war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...

. ''Star'' took the prisoners to Île de France. Wood and his men returned to the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

in their

prize A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people (such as sporting teams and organizations) to recognize and reward their actions and achievements.

, a small boat of 15 tons burthen that they had built, and some small vessels that were prizes to the Cape squadron.Marshall (1823), Vol. 1, Part 2, pp. 791–2. Wood returned to England, where on 15 December 1798 he and his officers were acquitted at the

court martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

for the loss of their ship.

Citations

References

* Robert Gardiner, ''The First Frigates'', Conway Maritime Press, London 1992. . * * David Lyon, ''The Sailing Navy List'', Conway Maritime Press, London 1993. . * * * Rif Winfield, ''

British Warships in the Age of Sail ''British Warships in the Age of Sail'' is a series of four books by maritime historian Rif Winfield comprising a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships that served or were intended to serve in the (British) Royal Navy ...

, 1714 to 1792'', Seaforth Publishing, London 2007. .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sibyl (1779) 1779 ships Sixth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy Maritime incidents in 1798 Ships built on the Beaulieu River Shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean