Hired armed lugger Aristocrat

As a lugger she participated in two notable engagements, the second of which won for her crew the Naval General Service Medal, awarded some 50 years later.

[1] In 1793, at the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars, the Governor of Jersey Alexander Lindsay had opened communications between England and the Royalists.

There exist records in the National Archives of the number of emigres carried onboard Aristocrat by d'Auvergne's order over the period 4 March 1795 to 2 September 1797.

Her passengers informed Wilkins that orders had arrived at St Malo for the authorities to send out every armed vessel they could to chase off Aristocrat, or better, to capture her.

When she reached the Minques rocks south of Jersey, Wilkins anchored, his crew exhausted after some 18 hours of running battle.

[2] In March, Lieutenant George M'Kinley, of the brig Liberty, and Lieutenant Abraham Gossett in Aristocrat had chased a French convoy consisting of a corvette, two luggers, four brigs, and two sloops, which had taken refuge in Spergui Bay (Erquy; also Herqui, Bouche d'Arkie or Bay of Erqui), near Cap Fréhel.

Sir William Sidney Smith arrived in his 38-gun frigate Diamond, and proceeded to blockade the port while taking soundings.

As the three British warships sailed into the port, they were able quickly to silence the one-gun battery, but the other three guns remained a problem.

The landing party then scrambled ashore at another point and scaled the precipice, getting to the guns before the men on the beach could regain their position.

French records report that during the engagement, the commander of the corvette Étourdie, lieutenant de vaisseau Dusaulchoy, was killed.

[4][6] In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Port Spergui", to the four surviving claimants from the three ships that had taken part in the attack.

There was a gale that night and the prize's rigging was so shot-up that on 1 January 1800 Wray brought Aristocrat and Avanture into Plymouth rather than Jersey.

Wilkins may have sold her as he later appears as captain of the hired armed schooner Princess Charlotte in 1805-6, and then as master on two subsequent letters of marque.