escorted both prizes to Malta. Royal Navy career There the officers of the Malta Yard surveyed her; after she was found fit for service the navy commissioned her as Renard and Nelson appointed Lieutenant Richard Spencer, who had earlier served on Cameleon and had transferred to , to command her. Nelson suggested that she should have a crew of 60 men, including two boys, and that Spencer apply to Sir Alexander Ball, the British governor of Malta, for Maltese to man her. Nelson further directed that Renard serve Ball for the protection of Malta's commerce and such other services as Ball would determine. Renard was later renamed Crafty but the two names coexisted for a time. While escorting a convoy of merchantmen Crafty drove on shore and destroyed a Cisalpine 4-gun privateer that had come out from Syracuse. This occurred on 28 July 1804, and resulted in Nelson writing a letter of reprimand to Spencer. Because of the weather, Spencer had permitted the four merchant vessels that he was escorting to anchor southward of Cape Moro di Porco (Capo Murro di Porco, five kilometers south of Syracuse). While they waited, he sailed to investigate a strange vessel in sight. Then another vessel came on the scene, having rounded the Cape from Syracuse, and approached the merchant vessels. The captains of those vessels feared the newcomer was a privateer, so they cut their cables and set sail towards Renard. Spencer decided to "chastise" the presumed privateer for violating the neutrality of Sicily and so sailed towards her. The newcomer then drove onto the rocks and landed her crew. Nelson pointed out that although destroying privateers that violated Sicily's neutrality was a worthwhile objective, Spencer's first responsibility was to protect the convoy and that he should not have left the merchantmen. Furthermore, had he stayed with them, he might have come to have legal ground to engage the newcomer [once it had revealed by its actions, such as firing a shot, that it was indeed a privateer]. Subsequently, King Ferdinand of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily raised a concern about Spencer's possible violation of the Kingdom's neutrality and Nelson ordered an investigation. Spencer was apparently exonerated as nothing more eventuated. In February 1806, there arrived at Malta three French vessels, prizes to Renard. Renard had captured off Maretimo (the westernmost of the Aegadian Islands, off the west coast of Sicily), a