HMS Weazel (1745)

The vessel that would become Weazel was built by shipwrights James Taylor and John Randall of Rotherhithe, and was initially intended to be a private merchant craft. The Royal Navy purchased the half-built vessel on 22 April 1745 and hired Taylor and Randall to complete her for naval service. The fee for the vessel and her completion was £2,387. Once ownership of the vessel had passed into Navy hands, Randall and Taylor were directed to complete her in accordance with an experimental design, as the Royal Navy's first three-masted ship rigged sloop. The quarterdeck was lengthened from the original plans in order to incorporate a mizzen mast, with the intention that the additional sails would enhance speed and maneuverability compared to the traditional two-masted snow rig sloop. This proved sufficiently successful that from 1756 ship rigging became the standard for all subsequent 14-gun and 16-gun sloops in Royal Navy hands. As built, Weazel was long with a keel, a beam of , and a hold depth of . Her designated complement was 110 officers and ratings from 1745 to 1749, rising to 125 thereafter. ==Navy service==

European waters Weazel was launched on 22 May 1745 and sailed to Deptford Dockyard for fitout and to take on armament and crew. She was formally commissioned on 24 June under Commander Thomas Craven, entering Royal Navy service at the height of the War of Austrian Succession which pitted coalitions broadly comprising France, Prussia and Spain, against Britain, the Habsburg monarchy and the Dutch Republic. Craven's orders were to take Weazel into the English Channel and the Downs to patrol for enemy privateers. The new-built sloop was swiftly in action, capturing the privateer Le Renard in the Channel on 23 November. In February 1746 Craven was replaced by Lieutenant Hugh Palliser, who immediately pressed Weazel back into active service. The 8-gun French privateer La Revanche was captured on 27 March, followed by La Charmante on 1 April. One further privateer narrowly avoided capture off Spithead in early April when Weazels approach was slowed by light winds. The French vessel escaped only after throwing its cannons overboard to increase its speed. Further victories followed that year with Weazel capturing the privateers ''L'Epervier on 29 July, Le Delangle on 3 August and both La Fortune and La Jeantie'' on 8 October. At the end of the year Commander Palliser was made post-captain and assigned to the 70-gun ship of the line ; his place on Weazel was taken by Commander Samuel Barrington. On the morning of 14 October the fleet was offshore from Cape Finisterre when it encountered a French force of eight ships of the line, escorting a convoy of 252 merchant vessels. Hawke approached from the leeward while the French sailed close-hauled in a line ahead, expecting that he would engage in a long-range artillery duel. Instead, Hawke made the signal for a general chase, freeing his captains from the constraints of a formal battle; the British then overhauled the French line and enveloped it from rear to van, capturing six ships. Around 4,000 French sailors were captured or killed, against 757 British casualties. During the battle the merchant convoy, and the remaining two French naval vessels, had escaped to the west with the intention of reaching the French Caribbean. Weazel had been too small to join the line of battle the previous day, but Admiral Hawke now deputised her to sail in haste for the Royal Navy's Jamaica Station with a message advising the likely course of the French convoy. Weazel reached the Caribbean before most of the French convoy; the Royal Navy squadron based in the Leeward Islands put immediately to sea and was successful in intercepting 40 French ships and taking 900 prisoners. On 7 September the intercepted a British convoy and engaged . In the ensuing battle she damaged Druid, but the approach of the other British escorts, and Weazel, forced Raleigh to retire. ==Final voyage==

In 1779 Weazel was off the Caribbean island of St Eustatius when she was captured by the 32-gun French frigate Boudeuse, under Lieutenant Grenier. ==References==