HMS Whiting was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner (a type of vessel often described as a Bermuda sloop) of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1805. She was a participant at the Battle of Basque Roads. A French privateer captured her at the beginning of the War of 1812, shortly after the Americans had captured and released her in the first naval incident of the war. Napoleonic Wars In 1805 Whiting was under the command of Lieutenant John Orkney at Halifax on her way to Portsmouth for completion, which took place between 26 April and 19 May 1806. Before that, however, at end-September she captured and sent into Bermuda an American vessel from Bordeaux carrying brandy and wine. Whiting was commissioned in June 1806 under Lieutenant George Roach for the North Sea. However, already on 18 June Whiting, , and the hired armed cutter John Bull arrived at Madeira. They were to join up with a squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren, and they sailed from Madeira to Join it on 21 June. Even so, Whiting was still or again under the command of Orkney when on 29 November she captured the Spanish lugger Felicided. Orkney had also destroyed another vessel after transferring a small quantity of hides to the Felicidad. On 7 September 1807 Whiting was part of the fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. In January 1808 Lieutenant Henry Wildey assumed command. On 30 June Whiting was in attendance when her sister ship hit the Parquette Rock off Brest, France and sank. At the beginning of March 1809 Whiting joined the fleet assembling for an attack on the French fleet in the Basque Roads. William Congreve, who had arrived with a transport, fitted Whiting and the two the hired armed cutters Nimrod and King George with rockets. On 11 April the three vessels took up a position near the Boyart Shoal (see Fort Boyard) while fireships made a night attack on the French ships. The next day all three, together with a number of other vessels, opened fire upon the French ships Océan, Régulus, and the frigate Indienne, as those ships lay aground. The first two eventually escaped, and the last was one of four eventually destroyed, though by her own crew some days later to avoid capture. In