British Navy Age-of-Sail

[beatrice_otter]

I have a British Naval officer commanding a sloop during the Napoleonic wars. Given skill, daring, and luck, what is the largest French-or-Spanish merchant ship he could reasonably take? What would be the most valuable cargo for it to be carrying? (Obviously, his ship is much too small to be going after, like, Spanish treasure galleons carrying silver.)

Comments

[kitarella_imagines]

Hi!

I don't know about this subject but my husband does so I asked him and he said:

In Napoleonic times, sloops were fast so they could cut in and take on any merchant ships, because merchant ships weren't heavily armed.

Especially if the merchant ship was unescorted or had somehow broken away from the escort.

Or, one sloop could take on another sloop and have a battle.

He says if you haven’t read the Horatio Hornblower books, they are really useful for inspiration.

Hope that helps!

[voidampersand]

The inspiration for Hornblower was Thomas Cochrane. With the sloop Speedy, Cochrane took a Spanish frigate that was four times the size and had a crew six times larger, as well as being much more heavily armed. But that was not reasonable. That was Cochrane.

[yhlee]

...intel. Or clandestine distribution of a "new" code/cipher key.

[anne]

Spices?

Eta: if they're coming from South America, cochineal and logwood for dyes