HMS ''Renown'' was a 74-gun
third-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker).
Rating
When the rating system was f ...
ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...
of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
.
She was to have been named HMS ''Royal Oak'', but the name was changed to ''Renown'' on 15 February 1796. She was launched at
Deptford Wharf on 2 May 1798
and served in 1800-1801 as the flagship of Sir
John Borlase Warren
Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, 1st Baronet (2 September 1753 – 27 February 1822) was a Royal Navy officer, diplomat and politician who sat in the British House of Commons between 1774 and 1807.
Early life
Born in Stapleford, Nottinghamshir ...
, initially in the
English Channel
The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...
.
Service history
On 1 July 1800, ''Renown'', and , with the
hired armed cutter in company, were in Bourneuf Bay when they sent in their boats to attack a French convoy at
ÃŽle de Noirmoutier.
[Debritt (1801), p.37.] The British destroyed the French ship ''Therese'' (of 20 guns), a
lugger
A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or more masts. Luggers were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland. Luggers varied extensively ...
(12 guns), two
schooner
A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...
s (6 guns each) and a cutter (6 guns), of unknown names. The cutting out party also burned some 15 merchant vessels loaded with corn and supplies for the French fleet at
Brest. However, in this enterprise, 92 officers and men out of the entire party of 192 men, fell prisoners to the French when their boats became stranded. ''Lord Nelson'' had contributed no men to the attacking force and so had no casualties.
[
Next, ''Renown'' participated in an abortive invasion of Ferrol. On 29 August, in Vigo Bay, Admiral Sir Samuel Hood assembled a cutting-out party from the vessels under his command consisting of two boats each from , , , and , four boats from , as well as the boats from ''Renown'', and ''Impetueux''. The party went in and after a 15-minute fight captured the French ]privateer
A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...
''Guêpe'', of Bordeaux and towed her out. She was of 300 tons burthen and had a flush deck. Pierced for 20 guns, she carried eighteen 9-pounders, and 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.Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
in 1801, still as Warren's flagship. During this time Charles John Napier, the future admiral, was a midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest Military rank#Subordinate/student officer, rank in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Royal Cana ...
in her. Because ''Renown'' served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 2 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.
In 1803 she was at Malta
Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...
. 6 December, 1804 she was at Naples, Italy and in 1805 was under repair at Plymouth. After a further spell in the Channel Fleet (1807-8), she transferred again to the Mediterranean.
In 1809, she took part in the Battle of Maguelone.
Fate
''Renown'' was laid up at Plymouth in 1811 and hulked in 1814. She was broken up in May 1835.
''Renown'' in fiction
In the Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films and radio and television programmes, and ...
novels of C. S. Forester
Cecil Louis Troughton Smith (27 August 1899 – 2 April 1966), known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal ...
, a ship of the line named the ''Renown'' (unrelated to the historical ''Renown'' of this period), is featured in the novel ''Lieutenant Hornblower
''Lieutenant Hornblower'' (published 1952) is a Horatio Hornblower novel written by C. S. Forester. It is the second book in the series chronologically, but the seventh by order of publication.
The book is unique in the series in being told not ...
''. In the story, the ship's mad captain is injured after falling through a hatch in mysterious circumstances, and the junior officers must take over on adventures in the West Indies. In Hornblower (TV series)
''Hornblower'' is a series of British historical fiction war television films based on three of C. S. Forester's ten novels about the fictional character Horatio Hornblower, a Royal Navy officer during the French Revolutionary and Napoleoni ...
this story was related in the fifth and sixth episodes, ''Mutiny'' and ''Retribution''.
Notes
Citations
References
*
*Lavery, Brian (1983) ''The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850.'' Conway Maritime Press. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Renown (1798)
Ships of the line of the Royal Navy
America-class ships of the line
1798 ships
Ships built in Deptford