HMS Sealark (1811)

HMS Sealark (or Sea Lark) was the American schooner Fly, launched in 1801 or 1811, that HMS Scylla (1809) captured in 1811. The Royal Navy took her into service as a 10-gun schooner. She participated in one notable single-ship action that in 1847 the Admiralty recognized with a clasp to the Naval General Service Medal. She was sold in 1820.

Origins and capture
Most sources give Fly's launch year as 1811, but not all. On 29 December 1811 Scyllla captured Fly. There being an HMS Fly (1805) in service, and the navy having lost its last HMS Sealark (1806) in 1809, Fly became HMS Sealark.

Royal Navy service
Lieutenant Thomas Warrand commissioned Sealark in May 1812 for the Lisbon station.

Scylla and Sealark were in company on 9 June when they recaptured the San Antonio y Animas.

Sealark's most tumultuous moment came on 21 July 1812. That morning, alerted by a shore signal of the presence of an enemy vessel, Warrand set out and within an hour discovered a large lugger flying English colours but chasing and firing at two West Indiamen sailing up the Channel. Sealark caught up with the lugger and eventually an intense engagement ensued that lasted for an hour and a half before a boarding party from Sealark captured the enemy vessel. She was the Ville de Caen, of sixteen guns and 75 men. She belonged to Saint Malo but was just a day out of the Isle de Bas and had taken nothing; she was the same vessel that had fended off the lugger Sandwich at some earlier date.

The engagement had been sanguinary. Sealark had seven men killed and 21 wounded, including Warrand. The lugger had 15 men killed, including her captain, M. Cocket, and 16 wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Sealark 21 July 1812" to the four surviving claimants from the action.

At the outbreak of the War of 1812, the Royal Navy seized a number of American ships that happened to be in British ports. Sealark was one of the 27 vessels that shared in the prize money from the detention of the Asia on 5 August.

On 2 April 1813, Sealark captured the American ship Good Friends. At the time, Andromache was in company. The privateer Cerberus was in sight.

On 23 November Scylla recaptured the ship Harmony. Sealark and the cutter HMS Surly (1806) were in sight.

Lieutenant Philip Helpman replaced Warrand in August 1814.

Then on 19 July 1815, Sealark was in company with HMS Havannah (1811), HMS Rhin (1806), HMS Menelaus (1810), Ferret and HMS Fly (1813) when they captured the French vessels Fortune, Papillon, Marie Graty, Marie Victorine, Cannoniere, and Printemis. The attack took place at Corrijou (Koréjou, east of Abervrach on the coast of Brittany), and during the action Ferret was able to prevent the escape of a French man-of-war brig that she forced ashore. Apparently, this cutting out expedition was the last of the war.

Fate
Sealark was paid off in January 1819. The Admiralty offered her for sale at Plymouth on 8 March 1819. She was sold on 13 January 1820.

Notes, sources and references

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