HMS Tartar's Prize
HMS Tartar's Prize was a Royal Navy 24-gun sixth-rate ship that served from 1757 to 1760 during the Seven Years' War. She began life as the French privateer La Marie Victoire, built at Le Havre in 1756 to hunt British merchant ships in the English Channel.
On 27 March 1756 she met HMS Tartar and was quickly overwhelmed. The prize was taken to Portsmouth, and the Admiralty bought her on 29 April 1757 for £4,258. She was renamed Tartar's Prize and fitted out as a privateer hunter, carrying 20 six-pounders on the main deck and 4 nine-pounders on the quarterdeck, with a crew of about 160.
Commander Thomas Baillie took command, but the ship had serious design flaws. Some of the six-pounders were too long for the narrow gundeck, making them hard to load. The gun ports had no lids, so heavy seas constantly flooded the deck; Baillie pressed for better decking and safer guns, but not all problems were fully resolved. The ship’s galley was undersized for 160 men, and cooking was smoky and unsafe, with kettles that often fell from their supports.
Tartar's Prize spent much of her early career escorting convoys and pursuing privateers. She achieved her only victory on 17 July 1757, capturing the French privateer La Marquise de Chateaunois. In 1759 she joined the Mediterranean squadron and fought at the Battle of Lagos.
The ship’s luck ended on 2 March 1760 when a hull timber gave way and she foundered off the coast of Sardinia. Baillie and the crew abandoned ship and were rescued. The Admiralty blamed no one for the loss. Baillie went on to shore duties at Greenwich and later at the Board of Ordnance, dying in 1802.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:12 (CET).