HMS Wilhelmina (1798)

Capture of the Furie & Waakzamheid, 23 October 1798
Thomas Whitcombe, 1816
History
Batavian Republic
NameWilhelmina
BuilderFlushing
Launched1787
RenamedFurie in 1795
CapturedBy the Royal Navy on 24 October 1798
Great Britain
NameHMS Wilhelmina
Acquired24 October 1798
Honours and
awards
Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasp "Egypt"[1]
FateSold in January 1813
General characteristics [2]
Class and type32-gun fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen8268194 (bm)
Length
  • 133 ft (40.5 m) (overall)
  • 109 ft 1 in (33.2 m) (keel)
Beam37 ft 9 in (11.5 m)
Depth of hold12 ft 4 in (3.76 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement244 (121 as troopship)
Armament
  • As frigate:
    • Upper deck: 26 × 12-pounder guns
    • QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns
    • Fc: 2 × 6-pounder guns + 4 × 24-pounder carronades
  • As troopship:
    • Upper deck: 18 × 9-pounder guns
    • QD/Fc: 2 × 6-pounder guns + 1 × 12-pounder carronades

HMS Wilhelmina was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was previously a Dutch ship and had been built in 1787 for the Dutch Republic as the Wilhelmina. She was renamed Furie in 1795, after the establishment of the Batavian Republic as a client state of the First French Empire. Like other Dutch ships at that time, she was pressed into service as part of French plans to support the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in the hope of destabilising Britain. The British captured her and the Dutch corvette Waakzaamheid in 1798 while the two were supporting French and Irish forces involved in the Irish Rebellion. The Royal Navy took both into service, with Furie regaining her original name. Sailing as HMS Wilhelmina, she spent the bulk of her later career in the East Indies, serving mostly as a troopship. Here she fought an unequal battle against a large French privateer, and succeeded in driving her off and protecting a merchant she was escorting. Wilhelmina was almost the ship that faced a superior French squadron at the Battle of Vizagapatam, but she was replaced beforehand by the larger HMS Centurion. She spent the rest of her days as a guardship in Penang, and was sold there in 1813.

  1. ^ "No. 21077". The London Gazette. 15 March 1850. pp. 791–792.
  2. ^ Winfield (2008), p. 198.