HMS Vincejo (or Vencejo or Vencego, or informally as Vincey Joe), was the Spanish naval brig Vencejo, which was built c.1797, probably at Port Mahon, and that the British captured in 1799. The Royal Navy took her into service and she served in the Mediterranean where she captured a privateer and a French naval brig during the French Revolutionary Wars. After the start of the Napoleonic Wars, the French captured Vencejo in Quiberon Bay in 1804. The French Navy took her into service as Victorine, but then sold her in January 1805. She then served as the French privateer Comte de Regnaud until the British recaptured her in 1810. The Royal Navy did not take her back into service.
Origin and capture
The Spanish built Vencejo as a quarterdecked and forecastled brig, possibly around 1797, and probably in Port Mahon. Cormorant captured her on 19 March 1799. Cormorant was in the Mediterranean proceeding to a rendezvous with when she sighted a brig. After a chase of four hours, Cormorant succeeded in capturing Vincejo. Vincejo was armed with eighteen 6-pounder guns on her gun deck, six brass 4-pounders on her quarterdeck, and two on her forecastle. She also had a crew of 144 men. During the chase Vincejo had thrown six of her 6-pounder guns overboard.
British service
French Revolutionary Wars
Commander George Long commissioned Vincejo in November. However, she had long since already started to serve with the Royal Navy.
In the action of 18 June 1799, a French frigate squadron under Rear-admiral Perrée, which had escaped Alexandria on 17 March and was now returning to Toulon from Syria, met a 30-ship British fleet under Lord Keith. Three ships of the line and two frigates detached from the British squadron, and a 28-hour running battle ensued. When the British ships overhauled them, the French frigates Junon, Courageuse, and Alceste, and the brigs Salamine and Alerte had no choice but to surrender, given their opponents' overwhelming strength. Vincejo was part of Kieth's fleet and shared in the prize money. A few days later, on 25 June, Vincejo sailed close enough to shore near Genoa that shore batteries fired on her; they ceased firing when she hoisted Spanish colours.
In the latter part of 1799, Keith detached a squadron of four vessels, one being Vincejo, under the command of Captain George Cockburn in . The squadron's task was to patrol the bay of Genoa to cut communication between Italy and France.
During this time Vincejo came to intercept, after a long chase and a warning shot, a large (6-700 ton (bm)) vessel. She turned out to be the Hercules, of Boston, and hence neutral, with no apparent cargo. The American captain explained to Long that Hercules had taken cargo to Leghorn, sold it there, and then had agreed to take a small number of invalid French officers to a French port where he might find a return cargo for the United States. Long was suspicious and ordered Hercules to accompany him overnight in Long's hope that they might encounter Cockburn and that he would decide what to do with the American vessel. Next day, when it turned out that Minerve was nowhere in sight, Long released the American vessel, which sailed off to Nice. Later, the British learned that Hercules had been ballasted with brass guns (violating her neutrality), and had hidden aboard her French plunder in the form of statues, pictures, plate, and the like.
On 1 August boats from Minerve and cut out two vessels from the Bay of Diano, near Genoa. One was a large settee carrying wine, and the other was the French warship Virginie, which was a Turkish-built half-galley of 26 oars, six guns and 36 men, that the French had captured at Malta the year before. Minerve and Peterel shared the proceeds of the capture of Virginie with and Vincejo.
On 17 October Admiral Nelson ordered Long to take Vincejo on a fortnight's cruise off Toulon and the Îles d'Hyères. One month later, on 16 November, Vincejo communicated with Nelson at Palermo that six French vessels (two Venetian ships armed en flute, two frigates, and two corvettes) had left Toulon. Long believed that they were sailing to Malta to reinforce the French there and so he was sailing there too to warn the Marquise of Niza, the commander of the Portuguese squadron that Nelson had sent to Valletta to initiate a blockade.
In December, Vincejo captured a French vessel carrying a General Voix and 75 officers, mostly members of Napoleon's staff, on their way back to France from Egypt. Long was able to retrieve the dispatches the French had thrown overboard as they had failed to weight them adequately.