HMS Cruelle (1800)

Cruelle was a schooner-cannoniere (gun-schooner), launched in 1793. The British captured her in June 1800 and commissioned her as HMS Cruelle. She spent a little over a year in the Mediterranean, serving at Malta and Alexandria before the [{Royal Navy]] sold her in 1801.

French service and capture

Cruelle was one of seven Vesuve-class brick-canonniers, though she herself was described as being schooner-rigged. However, her captors described her as a brig.

In late 1794 she sailed from Brest to Guadeloupe to alert the French there that a naval squadron under the command of Capitaine de Vaisseau Duchesne was on its way with supplies and reinforcements. At some point thereafter, Cruelle was converted to a bomb vessel.

On 1 June 1800 about 12 leagues southward of Les HièresMermaid captured Cruelle when Cruelle was only eight hours out of Toulon. Captain R. Dudley Oliver of Mermaid described Cruelle as a brig of six guns, four of which she had thrown overboard during the chase. She had a crew of 43 men under the command of Ensigne de vaisseau Francis Xavier Jeard. She was a bomb vessel but had left her mortar at Toulon as she was carrying supplies for Malta.