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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

USS Ariel (I)

Sloop-of-War:

Laid down for the Royal Navy in July 1776 at John Perry & Co.'s Blackwall Yard

Launched, 7 July 1777

Completed, 12 August 1777, commissioned HMS Ariel, CAPT. John Jackson RN in command

Ariel, cruised in the North Sea in August 1777 before departing for North America, 7 November 1777

Ariel shared in the capture of the Continental Navy frigate USS Virginia

She also captured schooner General Scott, 25 May, sloop Fanny, 4 June, the 16-gun "Congress" brig Resistance, 27 August 1778

Ariel also shared in the prize money for a vessels captured between 2 January and 14 September, sloops Betsy and Polly, brigs M'Cleary, Reprisal, Argyle , Postillion, schooner Chelsea, and the snow David

On 12 May Ariel pursued the French polacca Gaston till her crew ran her aground near Cape Hatteras and scuttled and abandoned her, next, Ariel chased two schooners, one named Trader's Increase, ashore and burned them

On the 14th Ariel chased the schooner Two Friends ashore, captured her, and refloated her

On 22 October Ariel captured the American privateer New Broom, as well as the schooners Lark and Three Friends

On 11 September 1779, Ariel encounted the French frigate Amazone, accompanied by two brigs and a schooner although she turned away but the French chased her and after a ninty-minute flight Ariel struck her colors.

The French took the captured ship into service as Ariel

In the spring of 1780, while Commodore John Paul Jones was in command of Alliance, Benjamin Franklin, then one of the American commissioners at Paris, ordered him to load that frigate with munitions and military stores which he had acquired for Washington's Army and had assembled at L'Orient for shipment to the New World. Since more materiel of war was stored at that port than Alliance could hold, Franklin asked the French Minister of Marine for the use of the prize Ariel to carry the surplus

After repair and refitting at Lorient between March and October 1780. The French then lent her to the American Continental Navy in October

John Paul Jones assumed command of Ariel in France. He changed her rigging to improve her sailing qualities, and removed 10 of her 26 guns to make room for more cargo

However, loading the ship and the need to obtain other vessels to carry the surplus cargo which Ariel could not hold delayed her departure.

Ariel — accompanied by merchantmen Luke and Duke of Leinster, which Benjamin Franklin had chartered to take care of the surplus supplies — departed L'Orient, 5 September, but contrary winds held them up in Groix Roads for over a month

The trio finally put to sea 7 October. However, the next day severe storms off the French coast broke and wreaked great havoc in the area, destroying many ships

Ariel lost all of her masts, sprang leaks, and suffered much other damage limped back into Groix Roads under a jury rig on the morning of 12 October

Ariel finally was able to get underway 18 October. Jones left much of Ariel's armament in France so he followed a southern route in the hope of avoiding encountering the Royal Navy

Ariel reached a point about 200 miles north of the Leeward Islands, a lookout reported a large ship that soon began to approach Ariel

Rather than risk his partially-armed only ship and the vital cargo and dispatches that she was carrying, Jones reluctantly fled but the next morning the stranger was closer than she had been the previous evening

Jones then decided to try to pass Ariel off as a British warship. When his pursuer reached hailing distance, Jones demanded that her captain identify himself and his ship

The stranger was the 20-gun British privateer Triumph commanded by John Pindar

Jones ordered Pindar to come on board Ariel with documents to verify his identity

When Pindar refused, Jones opened fire and forced his surprised enemy to surrender following a short and one-sided struggle

However, after Triumph had struck her colors, Pindar maneuvered his ship to Ariel's weather bow while the latter was lowering a boat for a prize crew, and then quickly escaped.

This engagement was John Paul Jones' last battle in the cause of American freedom, but he soon had to forestall a budding mutiny.

He uncovered a plot by the English seamen whom he had enlisted from among British prisoners of war in France to fill out his crew, to take over Ariel; Jones put the troublemakers in irons. Ariel finally reached Philadelphia with her badly needed military stores—which included 437 barrels of gunpowder, 146 chests of arms, a large quantity of shot, sheet lead, and much medicine, 18 February 1781 Early in June 1781, Jones turned Ariel over to the French minister to the United States—who manned her with a French crew for the voyage back to France

Final Disposition, after the French defeat at Neerwinden, her crew scuttled Ariel on the Scheldt in March 1793