HMS Fly was a 16 gun ship-sloop of the Swan Class and was built at the Royal Dockyard, Sheerness.
The Swan Class was a group of 25 ship-rigged sloops-of-war designed by John Williams, Surveyor of the Navy, of which 11 were built in Kent shipyards. HMS Fly was the second of three ships of the class to be built at Sheerness. The Swan Class were noted for the lavish scale of their decorations and were the last sloops built for the Royal Navy with decorations on such a scale. Orders were made by the Navy Board that decorations on smaller vessels be far less lavish and future vessels were almost puritan by comparison.
Ship-sloops like the Swan Class looked like a miniature frigates, with their gundecks partially enclosed by a quarterdeck aft and a forecastle forward. Sloop in this context was a term used to describe an ocean-going warship which carried less than the minimum 20 guns required for the vessel to be rated under the Royal Navy's rating system. Sloops tended to have a "Master and Commander" appointed to command them 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 until the late 18th century, an officer commanding a sloop had a substantive rank of Lieutenant and was appointed to be her Master and Commander. If a war ended and a sloop's commanding officer was unlucky or not well connected enough to avoid being laid off, he would receive half-pay based on his substantive rank of Lieutenant. If he was successful or at least competent, he would usually be promoted to Captain either while still in command of the sloop, or would be promoted and appointed as a Captain on another, rated ship. Sloops-of-war therefore tended to be commanded by ambitious young men anxious to prove themselves.
HMS Fly was ordered by the Navy Board from the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness on 1st August 1775. At the time she was ordered, what had started as protests over taxation in the American Colonies and the heavy-handed methods of enforcing them had escalated into an armed rebellion and the Royal Navy was beginning to enforce a blockade of rebel-held ports. Her first keel section was laid on the single building slipway at Sheerness in January of 1776 and the ship was launched into the Swale on 14th September 1776. Her construction had been overseen by Mr George White, Master Shipwright at Sheerness Royal Dockyard and was to be his last ship there before promotion took him to the position of Master Shipwright at the Portsmouth Royal Dockyard. After being fitted with guns, masts and rigging at Sheerness, the ship commissioned on on 19th October, with Mr Edward Garner appointed as her Master and Commander.
Her construction and fitting out at Sheerness had cost a total of £8,694.8s.4d. On completion, HMS Fly was a ship of 302 tons. She was 96ft 7in long on her gundeck and 78ft 11in long at her keel. She was 26ft 10in wide across her beams. Her hold, the space between her lowest deck, the Orlop and her bottom was 12ft 10in deep. The ship was armed with 14 x 6pdr long guns on her gundeck with 8 half-pound swivel-guns on her quarterdeck with four more such guns on her forecastle. She was manned by a crew of 125 officers, men and boys.
Swan Class PlansOrlop and Lower, or Berth Deck Plans:
Upper, or Gundeck, Forecastle and Quarterdeck plans:
Sheer Plan, Lines, Inboard Profile and details of decorations:
A model of HMS Fly showing the lavish scale of her decorations:
HMS Fly was Edward Garner's first appointment in command. In early December 1776, Commander Garner was ordered to take his ship to the Leeward Islands and the ship departed Sheerness bound for the West Indies on the 4th, probably in company with a convoy. Her time in the Caribbean was uneventful and the ship returned to the UK in July 1778. She entered the Portsmouth Royal Dockyard for a refit which was completed in September. The work cost a total of £1998.11s and involved fitting the ship with an additional gun-port on each side as well as sheathing her lower hull in copper. When the ship recommissioned, she was stationed in the North Sea.
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In the meantime, the old enemy across the Channel had entered into a number of treaties with the American Rebels meaning that France was the first country to recognise the United States of America as a sovereign nation. This provoked the British into declaring war against France. France had already been providing the Americans with arms, money, naval vessels operating as privateers and what would today be known as "military advisors". With the declaration of war, French naval and military forces operating in the conflict could abandon the pretence and fight under their own colours.
On 1st October 1779, Commander Garner was promoted to Captain and appointed to command the 24 gun Sixth Rate Post-ship HMS Hydra. HMS Hydra was to be Garner's last appointment with the Royal Navy. He was laid off at the end of the war and disappeared from the Navy List. He was replaced in command of HMS Fly by Commander Billy Douglas. Douglas' previous appointment had also been as Master and Commander in the 12 gun sloop HMS Snake where he had participated in the Seige of Savannah. Commander Douglas remained in command until he was promoted to Captain and was appointed to command the 80 gun three-decked Third Rate ship of the line HMS Princess Amelia in October 1781. His place in command of HMS Fly was taken by Commander Timothy Kelly. His previous appointment had been as Master and Commander in the 18 gun ship-sloop HMS Port Royal.
On 6th September 1782, HMS Fly took the French privateer L'Escamoteur of ten guns and 53 men in the North Sea.
By May of 1783, the American War of Independence was winding down. The British had lost the war on the American mainland back in 1781, when General Lord Cornwallis had been forced to surrender to Franco-American forces commanded by Generals the Compte de Rochambeau and George Washington at the Seige of Yorktown. This had rendered the British position in the American Colonies untenable and they had been forced to withdraw from their remaining possessions in Philadelphia and New York. The war at sea had been a little more successful when French ambitions in the Caribbean had been ended by their defeats at the Battles of the Saintes and Mona Passage in April 1782 at the hands of Sir George Rodney and Sir Samuel Hood. Fighting had continued unabated in India, but HMS Fly was to play no part in that. The ship paid off and decommissioned in May 1783 at Chatham and was placed in the Chatham Ordinary, her guns, yards, sails and rigging all removed and her gunports and hatches sealed shut. She was placed in the care of a core crew of about half a dozen warrant-officer craftsmen, her Boatswain, Carpenter, Gunner, Cook and Purser and their respective servants, with six Able Seamen. Maintenance and repairs beyond the capacity of these men would have been performed by gangs of labourers from the Dockyard who moved from ship to ship doing repairs and maintenance as directed by the Master Attendant in the Royal Dockyard.
In November 1788, the ship was taken into the Dockyard at Chatham and underwent repairs, which were completed the following February at a cost of £3,111.
In 1790, the Spanish Armaments Crisis erupted which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war. This was over the British establishing a trading settlement at Nootka Sound on what is now Vancouver Island off the western coast of what is now Canada. in defiance of a Spanish territorial claim over the entire western coastline of both American continents. As part of Britain's response to the crisis, the fleet was mobilised and HMS Fly was taken into the Dockyard and fitted for sea. As part of this work, HMS Fly's armament was brought up to date with the fitting of 4 x 12pdr carronades to her quarterdeck and 2 more on her forecastle. The work was completed in June 1790 at a cost of £1,589 and the ship recommissioned under Commander James Drew. Commander Drew's previous appointment had been as Master and Commander in the 16 gun ship-sloop HMS Echo.
Because of the slow communications of the day, it had been decided to start convoying merchant shipping across the Atlantic before a declaration of war had been made. For that reason, HMS Fly sailed for Newfoundland with a convoy on 20th June 1790. She had returned to the UK by 10th June 1791 because she sailed for Newfoundland with another convoy on that date. By this time, the French Revolution had occurred and the Absolute Monarchy which had previously ruled France had been replaced by a Constitutional Monarchy along the lines of our own. This was broadly supported by the British, especially after the new Government in France had refused to become involved in the Spanish Armaments Crisis, forcing the Spanish to negotiate a settlement with the British. In December 1791, HMS Fly paid off again, this time at Plymouth.
By the end of 1792, things in France had deteriorated to the point where the country was on the point of civil war. This was as a result of a power struggle between the King, Louis XVI and the National Convention. The National Convention was coming under the control of the arch-republican Jacobin movement led by Maximilien Robespierre andhis followers and this alarmed the British to the point where the fleet began to be mobilised again. In October 1792, HMS Fly was taken into the Dockyard at Plymouth and was fitted for sea again. The work was completed in December at a cost of £2,798 and the ship recommissioned with Mr William Brown as her Master and Commander. Mr Brown's previous appointment had been as Master and Commander in the 18 gun brig-sloop HMS Kingfisher.
In late 1792 the Jacobins had gained control of the National Convention and in December, the French Monarchy was abolished. In January 1793, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were caught trying to flee Paris and join with Royalist forces figting on their behalf, tried for Treason and executed on the guillotine in Paris. The following month, France declared war on Britain.
In October 1793, Commander Brown was promoted to Captain and was appointed to command the 12pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Venus. His place in command of HMS Fly was taken by Commander Thomas Affleck on 30th October. On 20th March 1793, HMS Fly sailed for Jamaica with a convoy.
In the summer of 1794, HMS Fly was participating in amphibious operations around Port-au-Prince, in modern-day Haiti. On 31st May, an operation was launched against Fort Brissoton, in which HMS Fly took part. In addition to HMS Fly, the expedition comprised the ships of the line HMS Irresistible (74), HMS Sceptre (64), HMS Belliqueux (64) plus HMS Europa (50), the 18pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Penelope and the 12pdr armed 32 gun frigates HMS Hermione and HMS Iphigenia. On 1st June, the ships took up positions to bombard the fort and the surrounding ground while Commander Affleck in HMS Fly supervised the landing of the troops. By 5pm, all the troops were ashore. At about 6pm, all firing was stopped by a tremendous thunderstorm. Under cover of the storm, the British soldiers mounted a bayonet charge and stormed the fort.
After this, Commander Affleck was promoted to Captain and appointed to command the ex-French 18pdr armed 36 gun frigate HMS Amethyst. HMS Amethyst was previously the French frigate La Perle and had been handed over to the British during the British occupation of Toulon in 1793. His place in command of HMS Fly was taken by Mr Richard Hussey Moubray. HMS Fly was his first command appointment. On 22nd August 1796, HMS Fly took the French privateer lugger Le Funet of five swivel guns and 27 men, some 20 miles off Portland.
In April 1797, Commander Moubray was replaced in command by Commander William Cumberland. HMS Fly was his first command. Commander Moubray had been promoted to Captain and appointed to command the 12pdr armed 32 gun frigate HMS Maidstone. Cumberland was to remain in command until 8th November 1798, when he was replaced by Commander Zachariah Mudge. HMS Fly was his first command.
On 30th January 1799, HMS Fly arrived at Plymouth from Guernsey. Before she had left Guernsey, the island had been shaken by an earthquake, which had caused the islanders to flee from their houses. On 6th February, HMS Fly arrived in Plymouth with a prize, the French privateer cutter Le Glaneur of 6 guns and 32 men, taken off Portland two days earlier.
On 20th May 1800, HMS Fly arrived at Portsmouth with dispatches from HRH the Duke of Kent in Halifax. On the way she had had a close encounter with a huge iceberg on the edge of the Grand Banks. This ship had been running before the wind in poor visibility at about 9 knots and it was only by a last-minute violent manoeuvre that she avoided striking the iceberg. On 24th August 1800, HMS Fly arrived at Guernsey after having been driven off per patrol route off Cherbourg by a heavy gale. While there, she had taken the French privateer cutter Le Trompeur. Le Trompeur was two days out when captured and had taken nothing.
On 15th November 1800, Commander Mudge was replaced in HMS Fly when Mr Thomas Duvall was appointed as her Master and Commander. Mudge had been promoted to Captain but did not receive another command appointment until April 1801, when he was appointed in command of the 22 gun post-ship HMS Constance. Commander Duvall's previous appointment had been in the gun-brig HMS Mongoose of 12 guns. On 7th January 1801, HMS Fly left Portsmouth bound for West Africa with a convoy of 13 vessels. En route, Commander Duvall was forced to order the convoy to scatter after they encountered a French squadron of five ships of the line and two frigates. On 19th March, a report arrived at Plymouth from Commander Duvall reporting that ten of the ships had made it safely to their destinations. What Commander Duvall didn't know was that the other three had abandoned their voyage and had returned safely to the UK. On 20th August, HMS Fly herself returned safely to Portsmouth and on 25th, her Purser, Mr William McLeod was tried by Court Martial aboard HMS Gladiator at Portsmouth, accused of drunkenness, dereliction of duty and failure to supply his ship with stores. He was found guilty and was dismissed from His Majesty's service.
On 17th September, HMS Fly departed Portsmouth bound for Newfoundland with a convoy. In January 1802, off Cape Flattery, she foundered in a storm and was lost with all hands.
The Swan Class of ship-sloops were and still are regarded as exceptionally attractive looking ships and for that reason, a number of companies produce remarkable models of them. The construction of one such model, of HMS Fly herself is detailed here:
http://hmsfly.com 
