| Pierre Jean Van Stabel | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Vanstabel, by Antoine Maurin | |
| Born | November 8, 1744 |
| Died | 30 March 1797 (aged 52) |
| Place of birth | Dunkirk, France |
| Place of death | Dunkirk |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of France |
| Service/branch |
 French Navy |
| Years of service | 1778 — 1797 |
| Rank | Rear-admiral |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards |
Silver sword offered by Louis XVI |
Pierre Jean Van Stabel[note 1] (Dunkirk, 8 November 1744[1] – Dunkirk, 30 March 1797[1]) was a French naval officer and Rear-admiral, famous for his role in the Bataille du 13 prairial an 2.
Career[]
Van Stabel was born to a family of sailors[1] and started a career in the merchant navy at the age of fourteen,[1][2] steadily rosing to the rank of Sea Captain.[2] In 1778, with the intervention of France in the American Revolutionary War, Van Stabel enlisted in the French Royal Navy as an auxiliary officer.[1][2]
Service on Rohan Soubise[]
Van Stabel's privateer Dunkerquoise in 1779.
Van Stabel took command of the privateer Dunkerquoise[3] In 1781, he was in command of the 22-gun corvette Rohan Soubise,[1] formerly the privateer Comtesse d'Artois purchased into service on 27 April 1781.[4]
Commanding Rohan Soubise, Van Stabel captured the British privateer Admiral-Rodney after a one-hour battle, in which he was twice wounded by musket bullets to the throat, relinquishing command of his ship just long enough to have the bullets removed from him body.[2] Too damaged in the battle to be taken as a prize, the privateer was then scuttled by fire.[2] King Louis XVI had a silver sword presented to him in recognition.[5]
Van Stabel later commanded another privateer, the Robecq.[3]
Service as Captain the Channel[]
In 1782, Van Stabel was promoted to Frigate Lieutenant, and tasked with escort duty in the English Channel,[1] on various small warships.[5]
In 1787, Van Stabel was tasked with ferrying four large barges from Boulogne to Brest.[5]
In 1788, he conducted a hydrographic survey of the coasts of the English Channel;[1] he was given command of the lugger Fanfaron.[5][6]
Promoted to Ensign in 1792, he took command of the frigate Proserpine, on which he left a one-year campaign in the Caribbean[1] and Saint-Domingue.[5]
In February 1793, with the outbreak of the War of the First Coalition,[5] Van Stabel was promoted to Captain, and appointed to command the frigate Thétis.[1] He departed Brestin in April[5] and led a four-month campaign in the English Channel, capturing around forty British merchantmen.[1][5]
Service as Rear-Admiral the Channel[]
In November of the same year,[5] Van Stabel was promoted to Rear-Admiral, and took command of a division comprising six ships of the line,[1] with his flag on the 74-gun Tigre;[5] the other ships were the 74-gun Jean Bart, Tourville, Impétueux, Aquilon and Révolution, with a screenning force comprising the frigates Insurgente and Sémillante, and the brigs Ballon and Espiègle.[7]
On 16 November,[7] the division departed Brest to intercept a British convoy in the Channel.[1] Instead of the convoy and its expected four-ship escort[note 2] under Sir John Jervis,[7] Van Stabel's division met a 28-ship squadron under Admiral Howe.[1] Van Stabel ordered a retreat, but Sémillante's inferior nautical qualities made her lag behind the division, and she was soon overhauled by a British frigate;[7] Van Stabel sailed Tigre independently to rescue her,[7] and in the course of a chase that lasted several days,[8] managed to pry seventeen merchantmen for the convoy[9] without granting Howe a head-on engagement before returning to Brest.[1] Only Espiègle was captured by two frigates on the 29th.[9]
Atlantic campaign of May 1794[]
Later than year, Van Stabel was tasked with escorting a food convoy gathered by Captain Émeriau, of the frigate Embuscade,[10] from the $3 to France.[1] The convoy departed in April, counting 170 ships.[10] The pursuit of the convoy of the Royal Navy was the focus of the Atlantic campaign of May 1794 which culminated with the Bataille du 13 prairial an 2 ("Glorious First of June"). The convoy arrived at the scene of the battle on 3 June and found the debris left by the battle; Van Stabel considered whether to keep his route for fear that the British fleet was still embushing him, but decided that the quantity of wreckage was a sign that both fleets had had to return to harbour.[11] He continued on, and eventually reached Brest unharmed on 13 June, without losing any ship,[1] and having augmented his convoy with forty prizes.[11] The National Convention voted a decree that Van Stabel had Bien mérité de la Patrie.[11]
During the Croisière du Grand Hiver, Van Stabel commanded the light squadron of Villaret-Joyeuse's fleet, he lost none of this ships.[1][11]
Later service[]
In 1796, the French Directory decided to reopen the shipping lines on the Scheldt, and tasked Van Stabel to lead two brigs and four gunboats to escort eight merchantmen to Antwerp[1] (six French and two Swedish).[11] Van Stabel managed to sail by several Dutch forts without engaging them.[1]
Van Stabel then returned to Vlissingen to conduct patrols in the North Sea[1] at the head of a division comprising four frigates and a number of corvettes.[12] However, his declining health forced him to return to Dunkirk, where he died soon after[1] of a chest disease.[12]
Notes and References[]
Notes[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 Levot, p.528
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Hennequin, p.271
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Préparation Militaire Marine de Dunkerque Amiral Pierre Vanstabel, by Jean Bouger. Sous-mama.org
- ↑ Roche, p.385
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 Hennequin, p.272
- ↑ Roche, p.192
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Troude, p.291
- ↑ Hennequin, p.273
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Troude, p.292
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Hennequin, p.274
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Hennequin, p.275
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Hennequin, p.276
Bibliography[]
- Bordonove, Georges (1974). Les marins de l’an II. Paris: Robert Laffont.
- Gardiner, Robert (2001 [1996]). "The Glorious First of June". Fleet Battle and Blockade. Caxton Editions. ISBN 1-84067-363-X.
- Hennequin, Joseph François Gabriel (1835) (in French). Biographie maritime ou notices historiques sur la vie et les campagnes des marins célèbres français et étrangers. 2. Paris: Regnault éditeur. http://books.google.com/?id=YbdCAAAAYAAJ.
- Levot, Prosper (1866) (in French). Les gloires maritimes de la France: notices biographiques sur les plus célèbres marins. Bertrand. http://books.google.com/?id=08O_XGLO43QC.
- Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours. 1. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
- Six, Georges (1934). Dictionnaire biographique des généraux et amiraux de la Révolution et de l’Empire. Paris: Georges Saffroy éditeur.
External links[]
The original article can be found at Pierre Jean Van Stabel and the edit history here.