The ''Prince de Neufchatel'' was a fast sailing

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

schooner-rigged A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoo ...

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

, built in New York by Adam and Noah Brown in approximately 1812. She is a fine example of the peak of development of the armed schooner. ''Neufchatel'' operated in mainly

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an waters, damaging

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

shipping during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

. Noted for her speed, at one time she outran seventeen

men-of-war The man-of-war (also man-o'-war, or simply man) was a Royal Navy expression for a powerful warship or frigate from the 16th to the 19th century. Although the term never acquired a specific meaning, it was usually reserved for a ship armed w ...

. In 1813, operating in the English channel, she took nine British prizes in quick succession. She also delivered a crushing defeat to the boats of a British frigate that tried to capture her. The British finally captured her in December 1814; she was broken up in 1815.

Construction

Her design is believed to be due to Christian Bergh. She had a hermaphrodite rig, i.e., she combined the rigs of a schooner and a brigantine. "She carried four sails on the foremast, one square sail on the main, and a large fore-and-aft sail with gaff abaft the fore, with large staysails over and three jibs. Her spanker boom projected far beyond the stern.

''Prince of Neuchatel'') After her capture her design caught the

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's interest and on 10 April 1815 it ordered Woolwich Dock to build a copy. However, with the end of the

and the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, the copy was never built.

Career

On 11 October 1814, under Captain John Ordronaux, she engaged in one of the most violent privateer clashes of the war. Becalmed on the south side of Nantucket, she became vulnerable. Captain Henry Hope of thereupon sent 111 men in five boats to cut out the privateersman defended by 40 Americans. After 20 minutes of savage fighting, the British surrendered. British casualties amounted to 28 killed, 37 wounded, and 28 taken prisoner. The Americans reported 7 killed and 24 wounded. Ordronaux put most of the wounded and prisoners off at Nantucket, and "limped into Boston". On 28 December 1814, in the Atlantic, the three British frigates, , , and sighted her and began to pursue. Under the strain of the large sail area her masts sprung (many Baltimore clippers experienced problems due to their extremely large rigs). Not being able to outrun the British frigates, ''Prince de Neufchatel'' surrendered. John Ordronaux was apparently not her captain at the time; her commander was Nicholas Millin. At the time of her capture, ''Prince de Neufchatel'' was armed with 18 guns and had a crew of 129 men. She was eight days out of Boston.
HMS ''Leander - Captain's Log

Fate

The British took ''Prince de Neufchatel'' back to England. There she was damaged beyond repair on the back of the sill of a dock gate as she was being undocked. As a result she was never commissioned into 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 ...

. She was broken up in 1815.

Legacy

The clipper '' Red Rover'', built in 1830, was modeled after ''Prince de Neufchatel''.

Notes, citations, and references

Notes Citations References * * Gardiner, Robert (1999) ''Warships of the Napoleonic Era.'' (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press). * * * {{cite book , first=Rif, last=Winfield, title=British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates, publisher=Seaforth, year=2008, isbn=978-1-86176-246-7 War of 1812 ships of the United States Ships built in New York (state) 1813 ships Privateer ships