HMS Tarleton (1782)

HMS Tarleton was a brig of 14 guns that the Royal Navy acquired in 1782. She was probably named for Banastre Tarleton, who had been at the Siege of Charleston. In the same year that the Royal Navy acquired her, the French captured Tarleton. The British recaptured her at Toulon in 1793 and she then served in the Mediterranean until no later than 1798 when she disappears from the lists.

British service
Tarleton may have been the Tartar, a British Ordnance vessel of 10 guns, which was captured in the Battle of Yorktown, then fitted out by La Villebrune with 12 guns and used in the defense of Chesapeake Bay. If so, she must have been recaptured.

French service
In late 1782 Tarleton, Captain Lecamus, was at Saint Domingue when the governor sent her to Boston. However, soon into her voyage, on 3 January, she encountered a British brig. After the inconclusive engagement she had to return to Port-au-Prince for repairs. She did not set out again until 9 February. On this attempt she encountered a British frigate and a brig and had to take shelter under the protection of some coastal batteries. Eventually she did reach Boston.

Between 1784 and 1788, Tarleton was under the command of Capitaine de fregate Comte Laurent-Jean-François Truguet. She carried the French ambassador Choiseul-Gouffier, and his suite, to his post at Constantinople. She then sailed around the Bosphorus, Marmara, and the whole of the Middle East. Truguet mapped the coasts of the Ottoman Empire and took Choiseul-Gouffier on an exploration of what was believed to be the area where Troy had stood. While in command of Tarleton, Truguet wrote a monograph on tactics and another on naval maneuvers; these were translated into Turkish and printed at Constantinople.

In 1790 or so, Tarleton was under the command of Sous-lieutenant de vaisseaux Féraud. He sailed her from Toulon to Milo, Sicily, via Tunis and Malta. Then she escorted French merchant vessels sailing from Smyrna to Cerigo.

Tarleton then reappears at the siege of Toulon, where Royalist forces turned over to the Anglo-Spanish force the French naval vessels in the port. The British converted her to a fireship. Royalist Lieutenant de vaisseau Louis-Joseph-Felix-Nöel Damblard de Lansmatre then commanded her in October as part of a small squadron that patrolled the Îles d'Hyères to suppress piracy. When the Anglo-Spanish force had to leave in December, they took with them the best vessels, including Tarleton, and tried to burn the remainder.

British service
On the morning of 9 March 1795, Admiral Hotham put to sea heading for Corsica in search of the French fleet. As yet unaware of the fate of HMS Berwick (1775), he sent the Tarleton ahead to San Fiorenzo to order Berwick to join him off Cap Corse. Tarleton reported back to the fleet that night, giving Hotham news of Berwick's capture, and presumably an updated location of the French fleet, as Hotham changed his course, heading north-west. The following morning on 10 March the British came in sight of the French fleet, now beating northwards back to Toulon against a south-west wind.

At the subsequent battle of Genoa (14 March 1795), Tarleton was in the seaboard or weather division under Vice-Admiral Samuel Goodall. After the battle, HMS Meleager (1785) was towing HMS Illustrious (1789) when she broke free of her tow. Then the accidental firing of a lower deck gun damaged the ship so that she took on water. Illustrious attempted to anchor in Valence Bay (between Spezia and Leghorn) to ride out the bad weather that had descended upon her. Her cables broke, however, and she struck on rocks and had to be abandoned. HMS Lowestoffe (1761) and Tarleton took off her stores, and all her crew were saved.

Admiral Lord Hood, promoted Charles Brisbane to command of Tarleton on 1 July 1794, and he served in her during the remainder of that and the following year in the squadron acting in the Gulf of Genoa, under the immediate orders of Nelson.

In the autumn of 1795 Brisbane sailed Tarleton from Gibraltar to convoy two troopships to Barbados. On his way there he fell in with a Dutch squadron, which he kept company with, sending the transports on by themselves; finding that the Dutch were bound for the Cape of Good Hope, he carried the intelligence to Sir George Elphinstone, the commander-in-chief on that station, acting contrary to the orders under which he had sailed. After the capture of the Dutch ships in Saldanha Bay on 18 August 1796, he was promoted by Sir George to the command of one of them; he had previously, 22 July, been promoted by Sir John Jervis, the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, under whose orders he had sailed, and he also received the thanks of the admiralty.

Captain Robert Redmill took command of Tarleton in July 1796. He was succeeded in September by Lieutenant William Proby. He remained in command only a short time before transferring to another vessel. By this time Tarleton was in a wretched state, leaky and rotten, and in great risk of foundering.

Fate
Tarleton was never expended, instead disappearing off the lists in 1798.