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Brian Beaulieu Alan Beaulieu Biography & Facts

HMS Beaulieu ( BEW-lee) was a 40-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down in 1790 as a speculative build by the shipwright Henry Adams and purchased by the Royal Navy in June of the same year. Built to the dimensions of a merchant ship, Beaulieu did not have good sailing qualities. The frigate was commissioned in January 1793 by Lord Northesk and sent to serve on the Leeward Islands Station. She participated in the capture of Martinique in February 1794, and then was similarly present at the capture of the island of Saint Lucia in April. The frigate also took part in the initial stages of the invasion of Guadeloupe. Later in the year the ship's crew was beset by yellow fever and much depleted. Beaulieu was sent to serve on the North America Station to allow them to recuperate, returning to the Leeward Islands in 1795. In the following two years the ship found success in prizetaking and briefly took part in more operations at Saint Lucia. She returned to Britain at the end of 1796. In 1797 Beaulieu joined the North Sea Fleet, in which she found herself part of the Nore mutiny. Her crew mutinied twice, once in May and once in June, but both attempts were defeated. Four members of the crew were executed for their participation. Beaulieu then fought at the Battle of Camperdown in October, unsuccessfully chasing the escaping Dutch ship of the line Brutus after the battle. After brief service in the Mediterranean Sea Beaulieu began to serve in the English Channel in 1800. By July of the following year she was a part of a frigate squadron based off Brest, France, and the boats of that squadron completed a cutting out expedition capturing the French corvette Chevrette in Camaret Bay. Beaulieu was put in ordinary for the duration of the Peace of Amiens, but was brought back into service in 1804. The frigate was sent to serve in the Leeward Islands again, re-capturing one British merchant ship before returning home in 1806. She was paid off in March or April of that year, and sent to Deptford Dockyard where she was broken up in 1809. Design and construction HMS Beaulieu was a 40-gun, 18-pounder, fifth-rate frigate. Frigates were three-masted, full-rigged ships that carried their main battery on a single, continuous gun deck. They were smaller and faster than ships of the line and primarily intended for raiding, reconnaissance and messaging. Beaulieu was designed and built by the shipwright Henry Adams at his shipyard, Buckler's Hard in Hampshire, during the peace between the American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary War. There being a slump in ship construction between the wars, the ship was a private venture by Adams to ensure that his workmen were kept in employment. She was the only 18-pounder frigate procured by the Royal Navy during this period and would continue to be a rarity; in 1793 she was one of only eight serving British frigates to have thirty-eight or more guns. Beaulieu was laid down some time in the first half of 1790, and was purchased by the Royal Navy on 16 June mid-way through construction, after an Admiralty Order was finalised on 2 June as part of the navy's reaction to the Spanish Armament that saw it begin to bolster the fleet. The ship was named by Adams as a compliment to the local landowner Edward Hussey-Montagu, 1st Earl Beaulieu, and this name was kept on by the Royal Navy. In service the crew nicknamed the ship "Bowly". Beaulieu was launched by Sir Harry Burrard on 4 May 1791. The ship measured 143 feet 3 inches (43.7 m) along the upper deck, 122 feet 10+5⁄8 inches (37.5 m) at the keel, with a beam of 39 feet 6 inches (12 m) and a depth in the hold of 15 feet 2+5⁄8 inches (4.6 m). Her draught was 9 feet 5+1⁄2 inches (2.9 m) forward and 13 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (4.2 m) aft, with the ship measuring 1,01979⁄94 tons burthen. Beaulieu was fitted out to go in ordinary at Portsmouth Dockyard because the navy was on peacetime mobilisation levels, and this work was completed on 31 May. She stayed in ordinary until the French Revolutionary War began, and was finally fitted for sea on 14 March 1793. Her construction and initial fittings cost a total of £17,788. While the ship was fitted out to Royal Navy standards after her purchase, the initial design had been down to Adams. As such, Beaulieu was not built in the slim fashion of other frigates, and was instead closer in proportion to a merchant ship of the period. This meant that her hold space was much greater than the average frigate, providing the capacity to store around double the amount of drinking water and ballast. While no official report on Beaulieu's sailing survives, her unusual proportions have led the naval historian Robert Gardiner to suggest that it is "unlikely she was much of a sailer". Beaulieu held forty long guns. The ship was internally laid out in the standard fashion for a 38-gun frigate, but with the addition of two extra gun ports. Twenty-eight 18-pounders were held on the upper deck, with eight 9-pounders on the quarterdeck and a further four on the forecastle. On 20 February 1793 an Admiralty Order had Beaulieu take on a number of carronades, with two 32-pounders on the upper deck and six 18-pounders on the quarterdeck. On 29 December six of the carronades were replaced with newer models, but they were all removed from the ship later on. Beaulieu's upper deck had fifteen gun ports on each side, but only fourteen of these were ever put into regular use, with the final pair briefly holding the 1793 carronades but otherwise being left empty. The ship was designed with a crew complement of 280. On 12 December 1794 the Admiralty reorganised ship complements, taking into account the increased use of carronades, and Beaulieu's was lowered to 274 men. This was because carronades were lighter than long guns and required a smaller gun crew to operate. Many captains found this decrease unacceptable and frigate crews were often bolstered, although this is not recorded in Beaulieu's case. Service West Indies Beaulieu was commissioned in January 1793 by Captain Lord Northesk, under whom she sailed to serve on the Leeward Islands Station on 22 April. At a time when the Royal Navy was bolstering its forces against France and was looking to keep its most powerful frigates close to home, Gardiner posits that the Royal Navy chose not to keep Beaulieu there, although she was one of the larger frigates, because she was "never highly regarded". By November Northesk had been replaced in command by Captain John Salisbury, and Beaulieu formed part of Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis's Leeward Islands fleet; she then captured the French merchant ship America on 31 December. Jervis was undertaking a campaign to capture the valuable French-held islands in the West Indies, which accounted for a third of all French trade and supported (directly or indirectly) a fifth of the population. The loss of the colonies would have a severe impact on the French economy. On 2 Februar.... Discover the Brian Beaulieu Alan Beaulieu popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Brian Beaulieu Alan Beaulieu books.