HMS Heureux (1800)

The "HMS Heureux" was a 22-gun brig which served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. She was lost at sea in 1806. Her fate remains an unsolved mystery to this day.

The "Heureux" was a French privateer captured in 1799 by the frigate "HMS Stag" in the English Channel. She was bought by the Admiralty, who commissioned her with the same name as a commerce raider intended for service in the West Indies, where she was sent in 1801.

Three months after her arrival, she chased down and captured the 16-gun French sloop "Egypte" from "Guadeloupe", and continued operations following the Peace of Amiens, when she captured the French blockade runner "Flebustier" 120 miles from Barbados. In early 1805 she captured two Spanish merchant ships, carrying wine and military stores, both called "San Sebastian", and over the winter of 1805-1806 she took four more ships carrying considerable amounts of specie and goods, making the crew of the "Heureux" quite wealthy.

She was ordered to transfer her position from the West Indies to Halifax, Nova Scotia in the spring of 1806, and began her passage in August. She failed to arrive in Halifax, and despite a search, she and her crew had disappeared without trace some where along the U.S. seaboard, possibly in the Bermuda Triangle. 150 men went down with their ship.

References

* Grocott, Terence, Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras, Caxton Editions, Great Britain: 2002. ISBN 1-84067-164-5.
* [http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/H2.HTM Ships of the Old Navy entry]