HMS Alligator

Three ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Alligator, after the marine reptile, the alligator. A fourth ship was planned but later cancelled:

  • HMS Alligator (1780) was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1780. In April 1782 she was at Accra, in company with Leander when they destroyed a French storeship and captured several forts.[1] On her way back to Britain on 26 June she encountered a French frigate off the Scilly Isles and a chase ensued and eventually a two-hour action in which she had three men killed and her captain and eleven others wounded. Eventually she struck to Fée.[2] Between 1782 and 1783 she was known as Alligator No.2. In October 1783 she became the packet ship Courrier de New-York, operating out of Lorient, and took up the Lorient-New York route in December. She was transferred to the Régie de Paquebots in May 1787 and used on the Le Havre-New York and Le Havre-Antilles routes. As a packet ship she had a crew of 47 men and was armed with sixteen 6-pounder guns.[3] She was put up for sale in December 1788 and in January 1789 she was sold at Havre to Sr. Ruellen.[4] In 1794 she was renamed Alligator.
  • HMS Alligator (1787) was a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1787 and sold in 1814.
  • HMS Alligator (1821) was a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1821, hulked in December 1846 as a hospital and storeship at Hong Kong until struck there in October 1865.
  • HMS Alligator was to have been a wooden screw corvette. She was laid down in 1860, but cancelled in 1863.

Citations

  1. ^ "No. 12312". The London Gazette. 9 July 1782. p. 4.
  2. ^ Hepper (1994), p. 68.
  3. ^ Demerliac (1996), p. 75, #476.
  4. ^ Demerliac (1996), p. 219, #2214.

References