British Service
Sardine was brought into British service as the sloop-of-war HMS Sardine and commissioned under Commander W. Wilkinson. By July Jervis had appointed Commander Edward Killwick, of Saturn to command her. In July 1796, Admiral Lord Nelson took Sardine with him to blockade Leghorn but remarked:
The Sardine cannot move in light airs, she is so very foul; and to say the truth, she has not the men to manage her, although I am sure that Captain Killwick does all in his power.
On 15 September 1796 Sardine captured the Spanish brig St. Juan Baptise. On 20 September Sardine attempted to enter the port at Genoa but was driven away by gunfire. Sardine was part of a squadron under Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, in Excellent, and also containing the cutter Resolution, at Bastia before the British evacuated it in October.
In early 1797 Dido and Sardine escorted a convoy of 13 merchantmen from Elba to Gibraltar. In March Commander A. Kempe took command of Sardine. Then Commander Edward Killwick replaced Kempe in May. Sardine was formally named and registered on 27 June 1798.
In May 1798 Killwick was appointed to command the Southwark Sea Fencibles. Sardine then essentially disappears from view. As Nelson had already remarked that she was foul, it is highly likely that Killwick had sailed her to Britain where she was paid off, registered, and ignored.
Read more about this topic: French Corvette Sardine (1772)
Famous quotes containing the words british and/or service:
“The inhabitants of St. John’s and vicinity are described by an English traveler as “singularly unprepossessing,” and before completing his period he adds, “besides, they are generally very much disaffected to the British crown.” I suspect that that “besides” should have been a “because.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)