Name HMS Porcupine Awarded 25 June 1776 Completed 14 February 1778 Construction started July 1776 Draft 2.31 m | Ordered 21 June 1776 Laid down July 1776 Commissioned December 1777 Launched 17 December 1777 | |
HMS Porcupine was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy built in 1777 and broken up in 1805. During her career she saw service in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.
Contents
Construction and commissioning
Porcupine cost £5,443.0.11d to build, plus £4,604.13.8d for fitting and coppering. She was commissioned under her first captain, William Finch, in December 1777.
Service
On 29 September 1778, Porcupine, Captain William Clement Finch, captured the French East Indiaman Modeste in the Bay of Biscay. Modeste, of 1000 tons, 26 guns and 95 men, was returning from China and richly laden. Her cargo was valued at £300,000, half of which was insured with English underwriters. Modeste became the Indiaman Locko, which later made three voyages for the British East India Company.
On 15 March 1779, the British warships Apollo, Porcupine, and Milford captured the French privateer cutter Tapageur. The Royal Navy took her into service under existing name.
She came under the command of Captain Sir Charles Knowles around February 1780 and fought an action against two 36-gun xebecs off Valencia on 22 July 1781. On 30 July 1780 she and the sloop HMS Minorca engaged the French frigate Montréal, the former British frigate HMS Montreal, off the Barbary coast. The two-hour engagement was indecisive and action was broken off.
Porcupine was stationed at Gibraltar during the Great Siege. In June 1782 the garrison there launched 12 gunboats. Each was armed with an 18-pounder gun, and received a crew of 21 men drawn from Royal Navy vessels stationed at Gibraltar. Porcupine provided crews for five: Europa, Fury, Scourge, Terrible, and Terror.
On 13 and 14 September and 11 October, the garrison destroyed a number of floating batteries. In December 1784 there was a distribution of £30,000 in bounty money for the batteries and the proceeds of the sale of ships stores, including those of San Miguel. A second payment of £16,000 followed in November 1785. A third payment, this of £8,000 pounds, followed in August 1786. June 1788 saw the payment of a fourth tranche, this of £4,000. Porcupine's officers and crew shared in all four.
In 1788, Porcupine took part in commemorations marking the hundredth anniversary of the siege of Derry.