HMS Kangaroo was an 18 gun brig-sloop of the Diligence Class, built under contract for the Royal Navy by John and William Wells at their shipyard at Deptford, then in the County of Kent on the south bank of the River Thames.
Designed jointly by the Surveyors of the Navy at the time, Sir John Henslow and Sir William Rule, the Diligence Class was a group of eight brig-rigged sloops-of-war, of which four were built in Kent shipyards. HMS Kangaroo was one of five vessels of the class to be built from fir rather than oak and for this reason, she had a very short career. Fir, or pitch pine is a much softer wood than oak and is much easier to work, meaning that their construction times were very short. The wood was also much cheaper than oak. Fir-built ships were regarded as being almost disposable and as such, they were not expected to have long service lives. The other kent-built vessels were HMS Seagull, also fir-built by John and William Wells at Deptford, and the oak-built vessels HMS Hound, built by Robert Hill at Sandwich and HMS Harpy, built by Thomas King at Dover.
In common with most British brig-sloops of the period, the Diligence Class were flush-decked; that is that their guns were carried on the main deck, out in the open, rather than on an enclosed gun-deck. Their brig-rig (with two, rather than three masts) and carronade armament meant that they only required small crews, which was a god-send for the Royal Navy which at the time was desperately short of men despite the efforts of the Impressment Service. Their armament of carronades gave them a ferocious short-range broadside. In fact, the weight of broadside they could fire was slightly heavier than that of the nominal armament of an 18pdr armed 36 gun frigate. All that firepower was delivered on a hull half the size of the frigate and manned only a third of the crew. The downside to this was that their brig rig only having two masts, made them more vulnerable to being crippled by damage to masts, spars and rigging. In addition, the short range of their carronades made them vulnerable to being picked off at range by the long guns fitted to enemy frigates. The term 'sloop' was used to classify an ocean-going warship which carried less than the 20 guns required for the vessel to be rated under the Royal Navy's rating system.
Sloops tended to have a 'Master and Commander', abbreviated to 'Commander', appointed in command rather than an officer with the rank of captain. At the time, the rank of 'Commander' did not exist as it does today. It was a position rather than a formal rank and an officer commanding a sloop had a substantive rank of Lieutenant and was appointed as her Master and Commander. An officer in the post of Master and Commander would be paid substantially more than a Lieutenant's wages and would also receive the lions share of any prize or head money earned by the ship and her crew. The appointment combined the positions of Commanding Officer and Sailing Master. If a war ended and a sloop's commanding officer was laid off, he would receive half-pay based on his substantive rank of Lieutenant. If he was successful, he would usually be promoted to Captain or 'Posted' either while still in command of the sloop, or would be promoted and appointed as a Captain on another, rated ship. Sloops therefore tended to be commanded by ambitious young men anxious to prove themselves.
HMS Kangaroo was ordered by the Navy Board from John and William Wells on 13th March 1795. As per the usual practice, the letter enclosing the contracts, specifications and drafts was delivered to their offices by courier from the Navy Board's offices in London. Once the moulds had been made in the Mould Loft and the first timbers cut for the keel, the first section was laid in July of 1795 and the vessel was launched with all due ceremony into the River Thames on Tuesday 30th September with her hull fully complete, having cost £4,644. After her launch, HMS Kangaroo was taken to the Royal Dockyard at Deptford, arriving only hours after her launch. Once there, she was taken into a dry dock and her lower hull was sheathed with the best Welsh copper. This process was completed on 3rd October after which she was moored in the Thames and was fitted with her masts, guns and rigging. The vessel was declared complete on 24th November 1795 and she commissioned at Deptford with the Honourable Courtnay Boyle appointed as her Master and Commander. When declared complete, fitting the vessel out had cost a further £3,414, with an additional £471 having been spent on coppering her hull. On completion, HMS Harpy was a vessel of 316 tons. She was 95ft long on her main deck and 75ft 1in long at her keel. She was 28ft 1in wide across her beam and her hold was 12ft deep. She was armed with 16 32pdr carronades on her broadside and 2 6pdr long guns in her bow. In addition to these, she was fitted with a dozen half-pounder swivel guns attached to her bulwarks and in her fighting tops. If you look at the Sheer Plan and Lines below, you will see a small square port beside each gunport. This was for a sweep, or a large oar. These were used as a last resort to manoeuvre the vessel out of a harbour in adverse winds or to give steerage way if she was becalmed. You will also see a pair of empty gunports over the stern. In a chase, or in action, these could be filled with either the 6pdr long guns or carronades, depending on the situation. HMS Kangaroo was manned by a crew of 121 officers, men and boys. The vessel also carried a small party of Royal Marines.
Diligence Class PlansInboard profile, main and lower deck plans:
Framing Plan:
Sheer Plan and Lines:
HMS Kangaroo was the Honourable Courtnay Boyle's first appointment as Master and Commander, though she was not his first command appointment. Between June and October 1793, he had been Officer in Command of the hired armed cutter Fox of 12 guns. His appointment prior to HMS Kangaroo had been as First Lieutenant in the 50 gun fourth rate ship of the line HMS Jupiter. He had been aged 25 when he assumed command of HMS Kangaroo. On commissioning, HMS Kangaroo was assigned to the Channel Fleet and was tasked in the usual role of a sloop-of-war, patrolling and hunting down enemy privateers.
On 9th April 1797, HMS Kangaroo captured the French privateer cutter La Sophie of 14 guns off the Lizard.
Boyle remained in command until 30th June 1797 when he was posted and appointed to command the sixth-rate post-ship HMS Hyaena of 24 guns. His replacement in HMS Kangaroo was Mr Edward Brace, who's previous appointment had been as First Lieutenant in the 64 gun third rate ship of the line HMS Polyphemus. Although HMS Kangaroo was his first appointment as Master and Commander, like his predecessor, he had previous command experience. Between December 1795 and March 1796, he had been Officer in Command of the hired armed cutter Hazard of 6 guns.
On 22nd June 1797, HMS Kangaroo captured the French privateer lugger La Surprise of 8 guns.
On 11th October 1798, a French squadron under Commodore Jean-Baptiste-Francois Bompart had been defeated by a squadron under Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren in the Battle of Tory Island. Some of Bompart's ships had escaped the defeat and on 15th October, HMS Kangaroo was part of a force tasked with hunting them down. The other vessels in the force were the 12pdr armed 32 gun frigate HMS Mermaid with Captain James Newman Newman in overall command and the 18pdr armed ex-French 38 gun frigate HMS Revolutionnaire. The force was patrolling off Black Sod Bay on the north-west coast of Ireland when they sighted a pair of large ships bearing north at about 08:00. They were soon identified as being the French frigates Loire and Semillante, both survivors of Bompart's force. HMS Revolutionnaire set off in pursuit of the Semillante while HMS Kangaroo and HMS Mermaid pursued the Loire. The two British frigates soon lost sight of each other in the squally conditions and the Semillante outsailed HMS Revolutionnaire and escaped. HMS Mermaid and HMS Kangaroo also lost sight of their quarry at nightfall. At daybreak the following day, HMS Kangaroo and HMS Mermaid again sighted the Loire and gave chase once more, with the faster HMS Kangaroo catching up with the big and powerful French frigate and engaging her. The Loire's captain was forced to have two of his 18pdr long guns moved to the stern chase gunports in order to try to drive off the British brig before she could get within range of her deadly 32pdr carronades. At about 15:00, the Loire opened fire on HMS Kangaroo with the guns in the stern chase gunports. HMS Kangaroo was forced to discontinue the action when her fore-topmast was shot away, crippling her. HMS Mermaid however, continued the chase and pursued the French frigate through the night. Daybreak on the 17th saw the captain of the Loire decide to stop running and fight HMS Mermaid. Seeing that the British frigate was much smaller than his own vessel and alone, he felt he had a good chance of success. At 06:45, the action began. Eventually, HMS Mermaid managed to manoeuvre to within a pistol-shot, or about 30 yards of the Loire and opened fire. Her fire quickly brought down the Loire's fore topmast and the crossjack yard on her mizzen mast. At 09:15, the Loire's main topsail yard came down, depriving the French ship of her biggest sail. Captain Newman gave the order to cross the Loire's bows and rake her but as HMS Mermaid was about to make the manoeuvre, her mizzen mast was shot away and fell, completely wrecking the quarterdeck and disabling all the quarterdeck guns. HMS Mermaid's crew quickly cut the wreckage away, then smashed out the stern cabin windows so that some of her main 12pdr guns could be moved to fire through the stern. No sooner had they done that, the main topmast was shot away and crashed to the deck. His ship crippled, Captain Newman had no alternative but to discontinue the action. The captain of the Loire decided that this was the moment to make his escape and the French frigate soon disppeared over the horizon, leaving HMS Mermaid to lick her wounds. HMS Mermaid was a wreck. Regardless of the loss of her mizzen mast and main topmast, her remaining masts and rigging were very badly damaged as was her hull, which was riddled with shot holes. As her crew were making repairs, the ship was struck by a serious gale which brought down her entire fore mast. With only half her main mast still standing and the stern completely open to the sea, it was only through the superhuman efforts of her officers and crew that the ship made it to the shelter of Lough Swilly on the 19th.
Meanwhile, the Loire had been unlucky enough to run into another British frigate, the 24pdr armed, 44 gun razee frigate HMS Anson. On 18th October, the Loire and HMS Anson fought each other to a standstill in an action which left both ships completely crippled. The night before the action, HMS Kangaroo had come across HMS Anson and the frigate's captain, Captain Phillip Durham had ordered Commander Brace to stay in company. Since the action on 16th, HMS Kangaroo's crew had fitted their vessel with a new fore topmast and associated sails and rigging so the brig was ready for action again. At about 08:30 on the 18th, HMS Kangaroo was far to the windward of HMS Anson and as soon as the Loire was spotted, made all sail in pursuit. By the time she got to the scene, both the bigger ships were lying crippled. Commander Brace ordered that his vessel head directly for the Loire's stern with a view to raking her. As she bore down on the crippled French frigate, HMS Kangaroo received a shot from her, but by now was within range of her 32pdr carronades, so the British brig replied with a full broadside, which brought down the Loire's entire mizzen mast. By now, the Loire was completely wrecked. She had six feet of water in the hold and was utterly defenceless. Commander Brace hailed the French ship and offered them the chance to surrender without further bloodshed, an offer the French were only too happy to take up. Commander Brace sent a lieutenant with a boarding crew in a boat to the Loire to accept their surrender. In both the encounters with the Loire, HMS Kangaroo suffered no casualties. Leaving HMS Anson to make her repairs, Commander Brace put a prize crew aboard the Loire and towed her to Plymouth.
Repaired and refitted for British service, the Loire was commissioned into the Royal Navy as the 18pdr armed 40 gun frigate HMS Loire and served until 1818, when she was broken up at Plymouth.
The Capture of the Loire, 18th October 1798. HMS Kangaroo is the vessel on the right hand side of the picture:
On 23rd July 1799, the merchant vessel Triton arrived at Plymouth with a cargo of wine and a prize crew from HMS Kangaroo. The vessel had left Opporto and had been taken by a French privateer before being recaptured by HMS Kangaroo. The vessel spent the rest of 1799 patrolling and escorting convoys.
On 22nd January 1800, HMS Kangaroo captured the French privateer Telegraphe of 14 guns and 78 men out of St Malo. On the 11th, the Telegraphe had taken the merchant brig Elizabeth, sailing out of Lisbon with a cargo of fruit. Later on 22nd, HMS Kangaroo parted company with the Telegraphe leaving her in the care of her Second Lieutenant, Mr Thompson and a prize crew. The First Lieutenant was unable to take command of the vessel having been injured by being struck by one of the vessel's 6pdr chase guns when it recoiled when fired at the Telegraphe. HMS Kangaroo had left in chase of a suspected French ship-privateer. The following day, she was forced to abandon the chase when the main boom carried away.
On 25th January 1800, HMS Kangaroo engaged a French privateer brig of 18 guns. After a firefight lasting an hour and fifty minutes, the enemy vessel made off having damaged HMS Kangaroo's sails and rigging sufficiently to prevent her from pursuing. In this action, HMS Kangaroo suffered casualties with her Boatswain Mr William Allen, four seamen and a Marine wounded.
On 22nd February 1800, HMS Kangaroo recaptured the American cargo ship Minerva with a cargo of tobacco, which had been taken by a French privateer. Two days later, she recaptured the British West Indiaman Chance, out of Martinique with a cargo of tobacco. This ship had been taken by the French privateer Bellegarde, which herself had been captured by the 18pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Phoebe the day before.
On 22nd April 1800 Commander Brace was posted and left HMS Kangaroo. He didn't receive another sea-going command appointment for another year, when he was appointed to command the 98 gun second rate ship of the line HMS Neptune. His replacement in HMS Kangaroo was Mr George Christopher Pulling.
From March 1801, HMS Kangaroo was in the Mediterranean, operating off the coast of Egypt in support of the campaign to defeat a French army which had been left stranded in the desert after the destruction by Nelson of the fleet which had brought them there in the Battle of the Nile. On 9th June 1801, HMS Kangaroo was in company with the small, 4pdr armed 14 gun brig-sloop HMS Speedy, commanded by Lord Thomas Cochrane. The two vessels were patrolling off the east coast of Spain when they found a Spanish convoy sheltering under a shore battery in the small port of Oropeso. The convoy was protected by a xebec mounting 20 guns, three gunboats and the 12-gun shore battery mounted in a square tower overlooking the harbour. Cochrane and Pulling decided they would attack the convoy and the two vessels anchored at the mouth of the harbour and began a bombardment of the tower and of the armed vessels in the harbour. By 15:00, the xebec and two of the gunboats had been sunk and by 19:00, the guns in the tower had bee silenced. While the bombardment was going on, the boats of the British vessels entered the harbour and captured three brigs laden with wine, rice and bread. During the attack on the harbour, HMS Kangaroo's crew suffered casualties of Mr Midshipman Thomas Taylor killed with Lieutenants Thomas Foulerton and Thomas Brown Thompson, seven seamen and a marine wounded. Before the two British brigs left the scene, they blew up the tower.
On 18th February 1802, HMS Kangaroo was put up for sale at Deptford.
