HMS Defender, 1810

Defender:
Lugger rig
Built: France as Bon Marcel ;  Captured 1809;
Commissioned: 1809 (in France);
139 Tons; Length: 65′ (19.8 m): Beam: 17′ 2″ (5.2 m); Hold Depth: 7′ 4″ (2.2 m);
Guns: 8 x 12-pounder carronades
There were few luggers in the Royal Navy but they were the best sailers. Most were bought or hired from outside the service. Some were captured enemy privateers or smugglers (including Defender herself).  Luggers developed in the fleets of North Sea fishing vessels. They usually stepped two or three masts on clinker-built hulls. Naval vessels were always three-masted and pierced for arms. Defender is an armed lugger of the Napoleonic period: three stepped masts with topmasts placed aft. Defender could set a large area of sail. A clinker-built hull 70 feet long, with an 18 ½ foot beam – made for a fast vessel.  The problem was the yards and sail had to be lowered and swung to the other side of the mast when tacking, requiring a large crew. The rig was popular with smugglers and privateers, particularly from France.  Letters of marque, issued by a government, enabled an owner to arm, equip and man a vessel and prey upon merchant shipping in a freelance capacity.  During the French wars smuggling reached a peak.  By 1750 half of all tea consumed in England was smuggled.  For this trade the lugger was ideal. So close is the lugger’s connection with smuggling that the decline in this activity coincided with the decline of the rig. HMS Royalist captured Beau Marseille, a French privateer, in December 1809. She was armed with 14 guns, had a crew of 60 men and was three months old. Described as “a very beautiful vessel” and “one of the fastest sailers out of Boulogne”, the Royal Navy took her into service as Defender. She was fitted out at Sheerness and was sold at Chatham for £280 in September 1814.