HMS Spy (1756)

History
Great Britain
NameHMS Spy
Ordered9 July 1755
BuilderRobert Inwood, Rotherhithe
Laid down25 July 1755
Launched3 February 1756
FateSold 3 September 1773.
Great Britain
NameSpy
AcquiredCirca 1773 by purchase
Renamed
  • 1780: Mars
  • 1783: Tartar
  • 1787: Southampton
FateLast listed 1792
General characteristics
Class & typeBonetta-class sloop
Tons burthen2227594, or 230, or 250 (bm)
Length
  • Overall: 85 ft 10 in (26.2 m)
  • Keel: 70 ft 3+18 in (21.4 m)
Beam24 ft 5 in (7.4 m)
Depth of hold10 ft 10 in (3.3 m)
Sail planSnow
Complement
  • Privateer: 130
  • Royal Navy: 100
Armament
  • Privateer: 24 × 6&4–pounder guns + 10 swivel guns
  • Royal Navy: 10 × short 6-pouner guns + 12 × ½-pounder swivel guns
  • 1779: 6 × 3-pounder guns
  • 1781: 16 × 6-pounder + 4 × 4-pounder guns

HMS Spy was a Bonetta-class sloop launched at Rotherhithe in 1756 for the Royal Navy. The Navy sold her in 1773. From 1776, or perhaps earlier she was a transport. Then from 1780 to 1783, as Mars, she was first a privateer and then a slave ship, engaged in the triangular trade in enslaved persons. Between 1783 and 1787 her name was Tartar, and she traded with the Mediterranean. From 1787, as Southampton, she was a whaler in the British southern whale fishery. She made at least four complete whaling voyages and was last listed in 1792.