HMS Speedy (1782) - Recapture

Recapture

Speedy spent only a brief time sailing under the French flag. On 25 March 1795 her captain mistook Captain Thomas Fremantle's Inconstant for a French ship and she was recaptured. Taken back into British service, she was under the command of Thomas Elphinstone from October 1796. In early March the following year, Speedy joined a squadron cruising off Oneglia, Italy, under Commodore Horatio Nelson, consisting of the 64-gun ships HMS Agamemnon and HMS Diadem, the 32-gun frigates HMS Meleager and HMS Blanche and the ship-sloop HMS Peterel. On 31 March the French ketch Genie, a gunboat and four merchant ships were chased by the squadron and took refuge near the guns of a shore battery. At 3 p.m. Agamemnon, Blanche, Peterel and Speedy approached them and anchored in 4 fathoms (7.3 m) of water.

The four British ships fired their cannons and disabled the shore battery, then sent in several boats under heavy fire from the guns of Genie and the gunboat, and successfully boarded and captured both ships. In the meantime, the merchant ships had beached themselves to avoid capture. Under heavy musket fire from the beach, the British captured and re-floated the four merchant vessels. Among the British, one man was killed and three were wounded in the operation.