She began her life as a predator and ended it on the auction block. The French privateer Renard -- the Fox -- was copper-bottomed, fast, and barely months old when HMS Cerberus caught her in the English Channel in November 1797, along with her consort Epervier. Pierced for twenty guns and carrying eighteen six-pounders with a crew of 189 men, Renard was exactly the kind of vessel the Royal Navy loved to capture: nimble enough to chase down prizes, tough enough to fight when cornered. The Navy took her into service under her French name, and for the next twelve years she prowled the waters between the Channel and the Caribbean, accumulating a record of captures, recaptures, and one unforgettable afternoon of fire and destruction.
Renard arrived at Plymouth in January 1799 and sat idle for six months before the Navy began fitting her out. Commander Peter Spicer commissioned her in August 1799 for Channel duty, and she wasted little time making herself useful. In December 1800, working alongside Suffisante and the hired armed cutter Swift, Renard recaptured the brig Defiance. Twelve days later, she and Spitfire took the Danish galliot Palmboom. Before the month was out, Renard had captured Neptunus on her own. Commander James A. Worth took over in April 1801, and the pace continued -- the brigs William and Swan recaptured, the prizes Prince Hendrich and Prince Frederick Van Prussia seized on consecutive days. Renard was doing precisely what she had been built to do, only now under a different flag.
In May 1802, Renard sailed for the Leeward Islands under Commander Charles Gregory, beginning the Caribbean chapter that would define her service. Command changed hands with unsettling frequency: Gregory to Pearson, Pearson to William Cathcart by October. Between 1803 and 1804, Renard convoyed merchant vessels across the Atlantic -- unglamorous but essential work, shepherding trade through waters thick with French privateers. Cathcart earned promotion to post captain in June 1804 and was given command of the frigate Clorinde, but yellow fever killed him before he could fully take charge. The disease was as lethal as any enemy broadside in the Caribbean, claiming officers and crews with ruthless indifference. Cathcart's replacement on Renard was Commander Jeremiah Coghlan, and under his command the little sloop would have her finest hours.
On 20 March 1805, somewhere in the Caribbean, Renard sighted a ship to the northwest. Coghlan gave chase. As Renard closed the distance, the stranger shortened sail and prepared to fight. At 2:20 in the afternoon, Renard opened fire. Thirty-five minutes into the engagement, the French vessel appeared to catch fire. Ten minutes later, she exploded. Renard lowered a boat and pulled fifty-five men from the water -- all that survived of the 160 aboard. The rescued sailors identified their ship as the General Ernouf, formerly HMS Lily, a vessel the French had captured and turned privateer. She had been seven days out of Basseterre, hunting the homeward-bound Jamaica fleet. The General Ernouf had suffered twenty to thirty killed and wounded before the explosion; Renard counted only nine wounded. It was the kind of lopsided outcome that makes naval historians pause -- a small sloop destroying a larger adversary through a combination of gunnery, luck, and catastrophic magazine failure.
Coghlan's finest anecdote came not from cannon fire but from conversation. On 28 May 1806, after a grueling sixty-four-hour chase through the Puerto Rico channel, Renard overtook the French Navy brig Diligent. Armed with fourteen six-pounders, two brass carronades, and 125 men, Diligent was a credible warship -- and her commander, Lieutenant Vincent Thevenard, surrendered without a shot being fired by either side. When Thevenard came aboard Renard and saw how small she was, he was stunned. He requested permission to return to his own ship and resume the fight. Coghlan laughed. Thevenard then asked for a certificate stating he had not acted in a cowardly manner. Coghlan's reply entered naval lore: "No, I cannot do that; but I will give you one that shall specify you have acted 'prudently'!" Diligent had thrown her dispatches overboard during the chase, but Coghlan still sent her into Jamaica, where Vice-Admiral Dacres purchased her for the Navy.
Coghlan transferred to another command in mid-1807, and Renard's remaining service was quieter. She captured the Danish vessel Peder and Anna in October 1807 and arrived at Deal with three other ships from Honduras shortly after. By December 1808, the Commissioners of the Navy were advertising "His Majesty's sloops... Renard..." for sale at Sheerness. The advertisements ran into May 1809, suggesting she finally found a buyer around that time. Twelve years of service, a trail of prizes stretching from the English Channel to the Antilles, and one afternoon when the sea itself seemed to catch fire -- all of it concluded with a line in a newspaper offering a used warship to the highest bidder. The Fox had run her last chase.
The coordinates 21.23N, 71.50W place this story in the waters near the Turks and Caicos Islands, along the historic Caribbean shipping lanes where Renard operated on the Jamaica station. From cruising altitude, the deep blue of the Turks Island Passage is visible between the island groups. Nearby airports include Providenciales International (MBPV) and JAGS McCartney International on Grand Turk (MBGT). These waters were the hunting ground for both Royal Navy warships and French privateers during the Napoleonic Wars.