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JUNO
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(32) |
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Built in 1780, Limehouse.
Broken up in 1811. |
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- 1792 Capt. Samuel HOOD, in attendance on the Royal family at Weymouth.
- 1803 On 18 February JUNO arrived in Portsmouth with a small French privateer, ENTREPRENANT, Michael Vaniere, which had taken the GLORY, Benson, from London.
The privateer chased the GLORY for two hours, fired a dozen shots at her, then boarded with 15 men.
They lashed Capt. Benson to his chest in the cabin leaving him in pain for over four hours.
They also cut off his dog's head.
When he was rescued by JUNO the captain could not control his anger, grabbing a sword and lashing out at his captors, killing several.
The French captain shot himself through the head.
One eighth of the value of GLORY went to officers and crew of JUNO.
- Later in the year in the Mediterranean, where she visited Genoa, Livorno, Naples, Smyrna, Malta and Ancona.
Part of Lord HOOD's squadron with the Royalist forces in Toulon.
Capt. HOOD was sent to Malta before the evacuation of Toulon in December 1793 to bring back reinforcements and he sailed from Malta on 3 January with 150 supernumeraries of whom 47 were officers and marines from ROMNEY and the rest Maltese.
On the night of the 7th. JUNO passed the S. W. point of Sardinia.
and set a course for Toulon.
He was delayed by wind and current so, when he found on the evening of the 11th. that the ship would be able to reach Toulon, he ordered the hands to turn up to bring the ship to anchor and entered the outer harbour at about 10 o' clock.
He was puzzled by the absence of shipping and it was not until he entered the inner harbour that he was hailed by a brig.
He could not make out the language but answered that this was a British frigate, the JUNO, and requested that they tell him the whereabouts of Lord HOOD.
They appeared not to understand but shouted Luff! Luff! several times.
Supposing that there was shoal water near the helm was immediately put a-lee but the ship grounded before she got head to wind.
The best bower was let go and the kedge and two hawsers lowered into the launch and the cutter to warp the ship off.
At this time a boat came alongside and two officers came on board to say that port regulations required ten days quarantine in a different part of the harbour.
Capt. HOOD was still asking them the whereabouts of Lord HOOD when a midshipman said that they were wearing revolutionary cockades and, by looking closely in the moonlight Capt. HOOD found that he could distinguish the three colours.
Finding that they had been discovered, the officers announced that the British were now prisoners. - When Lieut. WEBLEY said to the captain "I believe, sir, we shall be able to fetch out, if we can get her under sail." Capt. HOOD immediately ordered everyone to their stations and the marines used their half pikes to force the Frenchmen, who had drawn their sabres, down below.
Within minutes all the sails had been set and the yards braced ready for casting.
As soon as the cable was taut Capt. HOOD ordered it to be cut and the ship started free from the shore.
As the sails filled he ordered the boats to be cut adrift in order not to impede their departure. - When the brig and a battery opened fire JUNO beat to quarters and the guns were manned. She just weathered Cape Sepet without needing a tack and opened fire on the last battery she had to pass before, at half past twelve, they were out of range.
- Capt. HOOD's officers were Lieut. Joseph TURNER, who died in May 1816, and Lieuts. MASON and William WEBLEY (later PARRY).
The master was Mr KIDD. - JUNO later took part in the siege of St. Fiorenzo in Corsica where HOOD landed Major Gen. Dundas's troops and a contingent of seamen in February 1794.
Capt. HOOD moved to the AIGLE frigate after the fall of San Fiorenzo to take part in the reduction of Bastia and Calvi. - 1798 Capt. George DUNDAS, North Sea.
On 11 August 1799 JUNO's cutter under Lieut. Salusbury HUMPHREYS joined with PYLADES, ESPEIGLE and COURIER to attack and capture the CRASH, formally a British gun-brig, which lay moored between Schiermonikoog and the mainland of Groningen. PYLADES' boats forced a large schooner to run herself ashore and Lieut. HUMPHREYS cut out a schuyt that was under her protection. The cutter had one man killed.
Capt. MACKENZIE of PYLADES immediately ordered the schuyt to be armed with two 12-pounder carronades and, under the command of Lieut. HUMPHRIES and renamed UNDAUNTED, she took part in an attack two days later on a Dutch schooner, VENGEANCE, lying with a row-boat and several merchant vessels near a battery of six guns on Schiermonikoog. CRASH grounded leaving UNDAUNTED to get alongside the schooner just as her crew were abandoning her. The strong tide and the curved sides of the two vessels prevented them boarding and Lieut. HUMPHREYS made an unsuccessful attempt to swim over with a rope but was defeated by the tide. Just as he was being hauled back on board the VENGEANCE blew up. It was assumed that the Dutch had left a slow match burning near a trail of powder to the magazine. Had UNDAUNTED's crew succeeded in boarding her they would all have been killed. - A few days later UNDAUNTED destroyed a large merchant vessel lying under a 8-gun battery on the Dutch coast.
- After the evacuation of the Helder JUNO carried the Duke of York to North Yarmouth and then received orders for Jamaica. She sailed from Portsmouth on 13 February 1800 with BUSY and 150 merchantmen under convoy.
- 1800-1801 Jamaica.
Lieut. BURNS, first of JUNO, was killed, together with three others and six wounded, when two of her boats attacked and captured the Spanish schooner VOLANTE, with the Viceroy of Mexico on board, near Campeachy.
Lieut. Eaton Stannard TRAVERS took over the command. She had been chased into shoal water by JUNO and MELAMPUS but JUNO's boats reached her first.
At the beginning of December 1801 JUNO was at Port Royal with Rear Ad. MONTAGU in the SANS PAREIL, his squadron and five other ships which had been detached from the Channel fleet - On 16 March 1802 Capt. DUNDAS removed to ELEPHANT.
and on 5 June JUNO sailed from Jamaica under the command of Capt. Thomas MANBY with important dispatches from Sir John DUCKWORTH. She arrived at Spithead at a late hour on 8 July with a large mail and a considerable sum of money belonging to merchants. - JUNO sailed again from Portsmouth on the 11th. to be paid off at Deptford.
- 1802 Capt. H. RICHARDSON, commissioned her at Woolwich in October.
- 1803 JUNO arrived in Portsmouth from the Downs on 7 March and on 15 March she sailed from Spithead and brought up at St. Helen's to lie there as guardship to intercept the trade bound for Portsmouth and examine them for seamen. She sailed from Portsmouth for Gibraltar on 8 April.
- 1805 Ditto, Mediterranean.
When Sir Sydney SMITH arrived in Palermo on 21 April 1806 he found that, although the Government of Naples had been driven from the capital, Gaeta still held out against the French.
He immediately ran in two convoys with supplies and ammunition plus four of EXCELLENT's lower deck guns.
When the enemy erected a 4-gun battery on the point of La Madonna della Catterra, to the northward, the Governor, the Duke of Hesse, suggested that a small party from the garrison should be embarked to land in the rear so the Rear Admiral placed Capt. RICHARDSON in command of the naval part of the operation and put a Neapolitan frigate and the gunboats under his orders.
Sixty soldiers were embarked in four fishing boats on the night of 12 May and Capt. RICHARDSON, with JUNO's boats and those from the Neapolitan MINERVE, Capt. Vieugna, landed them undiscovered in a small bay in the rear of the enemy's works. When the troops under Lieut. Parisio advanced the enemy abandoned the post after firing to alarm their camp; but before reinforcements could arrive, the guns had been spiked, the gun carriages destroyed and the troops re-embarked without loss. - On 15 May Capt. RICHARDSON assisted with another sortie. At half past eight in the morning the Neapolitan troops drove the enemy out of their trenches, spiked the guns in the Serapo battery and returned to their lines with little loss and a number of prisoners. They were supported in their attack and retreat along the shore at Serapo by, on the left, the boats of JUNO, under Lieut. WELLS and marine Lieut. Mant, and the first division of four Neapolitan gunboats commanded by Capt. RICHARDSON, and on the right by four gunboats under Lieut. Valguerrier. The third division of four gunboats, with 50 men from the garrison, was ordered to make a diversion on the other side of the bay. Owing to lack of wind the MINERVE could not join them, but they landed and brought off some cattle. Capt. RICHARDSON's division prevented cavalry advancing to attack them.
The allied losses were small, JUNO lost four seamen killed and five wounded, but those of the enemy must have been considerable since more than 100 muskets were brought in. - Dec. 1807 Out of commission at Woolwich.
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