HMS Wasp (1800)
Introduction '''HMS ''Wasp''''' was an 18-gun sloop of the British Royal Navy. She was formerly the French naval brig '''''Guêpe''''', (''guêpe'' is the French for wasp) which the Navy captured in 1800.She served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was sold out of naval service in 1811.
Capture ''Guêpe'' was a brig built at Bordeaux in 1798 that operated against British shipping in the Atlantic. On 29 August 1800 the vessels of the British blockading squadron, which was under the command of Sir John Warren, sent their boats into the harbour at Vigo to attack and cut her out.The boarding party went in and, after a 15-minute fight, captured ''Guêpe''; they then towed her out. She had a flush deck and was pierced for 20 guns but carried eighteen 9-pounders. She and her crew of 161 men were under the command of Citizen Dupan. In the attack she lost 25 men killed, including Dupan, and 40 wounded. British casualties amounted to four killed, 23 wounded and one missing. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "29 Aug. Boat Service 1800" to all surviving claimants from the action.A prize crew took ''Guêpe'' back to Portsmouth where the Admiralty fitted her out between October 1800 and August 1801.During this time she was re-rigged.
British career Now named HMS ''Wasp'' she was commissioned in July 1801 under Commander Charles Bullen, and sent to Sierra Leone at the end of the year. At Freetown, Bullen landed guns and sailors to reinforce soldiers and militias composed of free blacks resettled from Nova Scotia and Jamaica (the Maroons), who were engaged in a campaign against the local Temne people. After the Temne signed a peace treaty in December and the situation had settled down, in March 1802 ''Wasp'' sailed from Sierra Leone. She sailed to the West Indies where she was paid off in July. ''Wasp'' recommissioned again in May 1803 under Commander Frederick Whitworth Aylmer, and on 19 July that year captured the privateer ''Despoir''. ''Despoir'' was a lugger, pierced for 10 guns but only mounting two. She had a crew of 28 men under the command of Jean Delaballe. She was three days out of Hodierne and had made no captures. At the time  was in company with ''Wasp''.Aylmer sailed to the Mediterranean in June 1804.In August ''Wasp'' captured a Spanish lugger and sloop. The French privateer ''Venus'' recaptured these vessels, only to be herself captured by several East Indiamen, notably . ''Venus'' had five crewmen from ''Wasp'' on board as prisoners.On 12 and 16 January 1805, ''Wasp'', under Alymer, captured the Spanish brigs ''Minerva'' and ''Carmen'', and their cargoes. About two weeks later, on 21 February, ''Wasp'' captured the Spanish ship ''Victoria'', and her cargo.Aylmer was succeeded by Lieutenant Joseph Packwood in an acting capacity, and he by Commander John Simpson, also in 1805. ''Wasp'' was with Sir John Orde's squadron patrolling off Cadiz, and had a narrow escape from a French squadron in August 1805.The slave ship , Robinson, master, was sailing from Africa to the West Indies when on 30 November a French privateer captured her. ''Wasp'' recaptured ''Lancaster'' and sent her into Barbados. ''Lancaster'' had had four men killed and nine wounded when she was captured.On 12 December, ,  and ''Wasp'' left Cork, escorting a convoy of 23 merchant vessels. Four days later the convoy encountered a French squadron consisting of five ships of the line and four sailing frigates, as well as nine other vessels that were too far away for assessment. The letter writer to the ''Naval Chronicle'' surmised that the distant vessels were the Africa squadron that  had escorted and that the French  had captured. On this occasion, the British warships and six merchant vessels went one way and the rest went another way. The French chased the warships and the six for a day, ignored the 17, and eventually gave up their pursuit. ''Boadicea'' then shadowed the French while ''Wasp'' went back to French and Spanish coasts to alert the British warships there. and her six charges encountered the French squadron again the next day, but after a desultory pursuit the French sailed off.Lieutenant Buckland Sterling Bluett of  received promotion to Commander and took over command of ''Wasp'' in 1806.He then sailed to the Leeward Islands. On 24 May she came across the former British cutter , which had been taken by mutineers four days earlier and delivered to the French, who had immediately commissioned her under the name ''Napoléon'' and sent her out to capture some merchant vessels at Roseau. ''Wasp'' retook the cutter, which had on board 73 men under the command of Vincent Gautier, two of whom were killed before she surrendered. ''Napoléon'' had been in company with the French naval schooner ''Impériale''. That evening the packet ship ''Duke of Montrose'' engaged ''Impériale'', which enabled , which had been in company with ''Wasp'', to come up. As ''Cygnet'' arrived, ''Impériale'' surrendered to ''Duke of Montrose''. The Royal Navy took ''Impériale'' into service as HMS ''Vigilant''.In 1807 Commander William Parkinson took command of ''Wasp''. She returned to Britain later that year under the command of Commander John Haswell.
Fate ''Wasp'' was laid up at Deptford in May 1809.She was offered for sale on 13 December 1810, and was sold there on 17 May 1811.
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