Cherokee-class brig-sloop

The Cherokee class was a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy, mounting 10 guns. Brig-sloops are sloops-of-war with two masts (a fore mast and a taller main mast) rather than the three masts of ship sloops. The best known of the class was HMS Beagle, converted in 1825 into a three-masted exploration vessel for its first survey voyage, then considerably modified for the second voyage with Charles Darwin on board as a gentleman naturalist. Orders for 115 vessels were placed, including 5 which were cancelled and 6 for which the orders were replaced by ones for equivalent steam-powered paddle vessels.

Design
The design for the Cherokee class was completed in 1807 by Henry Peake and approved on 26 November 1807, with the first four vessels having been ordered in March 1807 but not laid down until December; by the end of 1808 another 30 vessels had been ordered to this design. After these 34, a further 2 were ordered in 1812 which were built of teak at Bombay. The design was revived after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and another 78 were ordered in two batches between 1817 and 1827. The first batch of these later ships consisted of 35 orders (of which one was cancelled) whilst the second amounted to 44 new vessels of which 4 were cancelled and 6 replaced by orders for paddle vessels.

The class was much criticised, being popularly known as 'coffin brigs', following the loss by wrecking or foundering of a number of them. There seems to have been no particular fault in their design, but they were considered to be somewhat too small for the global duties that were assigned to them.

1808-1816 vessels
The first four vessels listed below were ordered on 30 March 1807, two more on 26 November 1807 and the next twenty vessels on 31 December 1807. Eight more orders were placed during 1808.

Two vessels were ordered 2 October 1812. These were built at Bombay, using teak construction, but were otherwise identical to the earlier 34.

1818-1821 orders
Unlike the wartime batch, all the post-war batches were built in the Royal Dockyards rather than by contractors. Note that several names of vessels from the 1808-1816 batch were re-used for vessels in the second or third batches (as indicated below).

Thirty-five vessels were ordered in 1817-1821 - twelve on 13 June 1817, twelve on 2 November 1818, two on 8 December 1818, six on 23 May 1820, one on 6 January 1821 and two on 19 April 1821.

1823-1826 Orders
Forty-four vessels were ordered in 1823-1826, thirty on 25 March 1823, two on 23 November 1824, two on 7 December 1824, four on 23 May 1826 and six on 28 October 1826. Of these only thirty-four were built as sailing brigs; four were cancelled, and the orders for six more were replaced by orders for paddle vessels.

Six of the vessels originally ordered 25 March 1823 were swiftly re-ordered as paddle steamers in May 1824 - Alban and Carron (both at Deptford), Columbia, Confiance, Dee and Echo (all four at Woolwich).