Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Capture of the Desirée (Daniel Peake.) nearly extremely fine £5000-6000

Provenance: Glendining’s, November 1951, September 1961, and June 1992; Spink, November 2001; Turl Collection 2010.

Approximately 21 clasps issued for the ‘Capture of the Desirée’, the only instance of a clasp being named after an enemy ship. Daniel Peake is confirmed as a Pilot aboard H.M.S. Nemesis during operations in the Dunkirk Roads which culminated in the capture of the French 38-gun frigate Desirée by H.M.S. Dart on 8 July 1800.

Towards the end of June 1800, a British squadron comprising two frigates, the Andromeda and the Nemesis, the sloop Dart, two other sloops, one bomb vessel and 11 fire-ships, gun-brigs, cutters and luggers arrived off Dunkirk Roads to attempt the capture or destruction of four French frigates which had been blockaded in the port. On the evening of 7 July, Commander Campbell in the Dart led an assortment of naval vessels into the enemy port and at midnight came up to the four frigates moored in line. He sailed fearlessly straight in and it was not until Dart was abreast of the third frigate that she was recognised as an enemy ship and received a broadside which the Dart acknowledged with a double-shotted carronade. Running the fourth frigate, the Desirée, aboard, the Dart’s First Lieutenant, James McDermeit, at the head of 50 seamen and marines, boarded the Desirée and engaged the crew of 200-300 men until a second line of boarders came to their assistance. Within 15 minutes the Desirée was captured, her cables were cut and she was under way for the harbour mouth. The fire-ships of Campbell’s flotilla were well alight before being abandoned and the brigs and cutters engaged and drove off some French gunboats. The three remaining frigates cut their cables and made sail out of the Roads.

Daniel Peake joined the ship’s company as Pilot of Nemesis at Deal in May 1800, and was discharged the following August. He served in the same capacity in H.M.S. Regulus in March to April 1806.