HMS Oroonoko

Two vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Oroonoko, after the Orinoco:

  • HMS Oroonoko was the Courser-class gun-brig HMS Steady (ex GB-19 launched in 1797), which was renamed Oroonoko in 1805 when she was converted to a temporary prison ship at Trinidad. She was sold in 1806 at Barbados.
  • HMS Oroonoko was the French privateer Eugène, which the Royal Navy bought in 1805 to replace the previous Oroonoko at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. She was sold in 1814.[1] This Eugène may have been the sloop sailing from Bordeaux to New Orleans that HMS Renard captured at some point between 22 March and 3 May 1805 and sent into Jamaica.[2] There is another possible candidate. On 19 April 1805, a privateer Eugène, commanded by a Joseph Sires and reportedly owned in Havana and New Orleans, captured the American sloop George and looted it, after having threatened her captain, Read, with death if he did not sign papers declaring the George to be British, as well as a draft for US$1000 drawn on Mr. Grinberry, George's owner, representing ransom for the vessel and her cargo. They then put on board the George Captain James Newell and seven seamen from the Benjamin, of New York. Read then sailed George to Havana. Eugène had also captured an American schooner sailing from Port-au-Prince with a cargo of coffee.[3]

See also

Citations
  1. Winfield (2008), p.402.
  2. Naval Chronicle, (Jul-Dec 1805), Vol. 14, p.352.
  3. The Balance, and Columbian repository, (1805), Vol. 4, No. 23, p. 183.

References
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.

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