French brig Palinure (1804)

Palinure

Curieux (here in British service), sister-ship of Palinure[1]
History
France
Name	Palinure
Namesake	Palinurus
Ordered	19 March 1803
Builder	Louis, Antoine, and Maruthin Crucy, Lorient-Caudan
Launched	12 January 1804
Commissioned	20 May 1804
Captured	31 October 1808
United Kingdom
Name	Snap
Acquired	31 October 1808
Commissioned	13 November 1808
Out of service	15 February 1811
Honours and awards	Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasps: "Martinique"[2] "Guadaloupe"[3]
Fate	Scrapped, June 1811
General characteristics [4][5]
Class and type	Palinure-class brig
Displacement	290 tons (French)
Tons burthen	31956⁄94 (bm)
Length	91 ft 1 in (27.8 m) (overall) 73 ft 1+1⁄2 in (22.3 m) (keel)
Beam	28 ft 1+1⁄2 in (8.573 m); 27 ft 7+1⁄2 in (8.4 m) mld
Depth of hold	12 ft 9 in (3.9 m)
Sail plan	Brig
Complement	French service=*94 British service: 100
Armament	French service: 16 × 6-pounder guns British service: 14 × 24-pounder carronades + 2 × 6-pounder guns

Palinure was the nameship for the Palinure-class of 16-gun brigs of the French Navy, and was launched in 1804. In French service she captured Carnation before Circe captured her in turn. After being taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Snap, she participated in two campaigns that qualified her crew for the Naval General Service Medal (NGSM). She was broken up in 1811.

Palinure was commissioned on 20 May 1804 under capitaine de frégate Jance. On 1 February 1805 she sailed with dispatches to Martinique.

She then took part in Allemand's expedition of 1805.^[6]

On the morning of 22 April 1808 in Grande Bourg Bay at Marie Galante, Palinure and Pilade encountered Goree, under Commander Joseph Spear. In the resulting engagement Goree lost one man killed and four wounded; the French lost eight killed and 21 wounded. After about an hour Palinure and Pilade made off when they saw the schooner HMS Superieure coming to Goree's assistance, followed a little while later by the frigate HMS Circe and the brig-sloop HMS Wolverine. Superieure exchanged some shots with the French brigs but the other two British vessels arrived too late actually to engage.^[7]

On 3 October 1808, Palinure captured the 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop Carnation.^[6] Carnation's capture was due in part to the cowardice of a large part of her crew after the loss of her captain and heavy casualties. The British later recovered and burnt Carnation during their invasion of Martinique.^[8]

On 31 October, Circe captured Palinure at Diamond Rock off Fort de France.^[6] Palinure, under the command of M. Fourniers, tried to take shelter under the guns of a battery on Pointe Solomon, but the battery was so high above the vessels that Circe did not fire at it as she came up. After a short engagement Palinure struck. She had lost seven men killed and eight wounded out of 79 men on board, most from the 83rd Regiment; Circe lost one man killed and one man wounded.^[9]

On 13 November Palinure was commissioned at Antigua as HMS Snap under Commander James Pattison Stewart,^[5] who transferred from Port d'Espagne.^[a]

Snap took part in the British capture of the French and Dutch West Indies, including the capture of Martinique in February 1809.^[10] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the issue of the NGSM with the clasp "Martinique" to all remaining survivors of that campaign.

In August 1809, Commander Thomas Barclay took command of Snap, after having briefly commanded Epervier. In 1810 she was part of the force under Brigadier Harcourt that took the Dutch colony of Sint Maarten. There she provided cover for the troops landing at Little Cool Bay to encourage the Dutch governor to surrender his part of the island.^[11] Her participation in the campaigns would qualify her crew for the NGSM with the clasp "Guadaloupe".^[b]

Captain Frasier Douglas replaced Barclay, and was in turn replaced by Captain Robert Lisle Coulson.^[13]

Snap arrived in Portsmouth on 20 January 1811 and was paid off on 15 February. She was broken up in June at Sheerness.^[5]

• Demerliac, Alain (2003). La Marine du Consulat et du Premier Empire: Nomenclature des Navires Français de 1800 à 1815 (in French). Éditions Ancre. ISBN 2-903179-30-1.
• James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. Vol. 5. R. Bentley.
• O'Byrne, William R. (1849). "Cox, Douglas" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray. p. 235.
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours, 1671 - 1870. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.
• Winfield, Rif; Roberts, Stephen S. (2015). French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786–1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-204-2.