HMS Asp

HMS Asp was the first command of Captain Frederick Wentworth, an old, worn-out sloop that he obtained through luck and persistence early in his career. Though hardly fit for service, the Asp became the vessel on which Wentworth proved his seamanship and fortune, carrying him through privateer actions and a decisive capture of a French frigate before being broken up. The ship stands as a symbol of the naval meritocracy that Sir Walter Elliot despised and of the early confidence and ambition that defined Wentworth's character.

Identity and Acquisition

The Asp was an old built sloop, already "quite worn out and broken up" by the time Wentworth commanded her. Admiral Croft, a seasoned naval officer, insisted that in her day she was "never a better sloop" and that Wentworth was a "lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more interest than his." Wentworth himself acknowledged his luck, stating that he was "as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire" because his great object at that time was to be at sea and "to be doing something." He knew the ship's poor condition before he took command, comparing her to an old pelisse that had been lent around among acquaintances for years before finally being lent to him on a wet day.

Service and Exploits

Despite her age and decrepitude, the Asp served Wentworth well. He declared, "Ah! she was a dear old Asp to me. She did all that I wanted. I knew she would." He had a premonition that they would either "go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me." During his time in her, he experienced only two days of foul weather and took enough privateers to be "very entertaining." The climax of his command came on his passage home the next autumn, when he fell in with the very French frigate he wanted. He brought her into Plymouth, and this capture was a key step in his advancement. The Asp's poor condition was further highlighted by a gale that came on just six hours after they entered the Sound, lasting four days and nights, which would have destroyed the old sloop in half that time. Wentworth reflected that had he been twenty-four hours later, he would have been merely "a gallant Captain Wentworth, in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers."

Significance and Legacy

The Asp represents the early, uncertain phase of Wentworth's career, when he had nothing but his own confidence and luck to recommend him. It was during this period that he first became engaged to Anne Elliot, a match that Lady Russell and Sir Walter Elliot opposed precisely because of the precariousness of a naval profession. Wentworth's success in the Asp, and his subsequent rise, proved his sanguine expectations justified. The ship's worn-out state also embodies Sir Walter's contempt for the navy, which he saw as a profession that "cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly" and brings "persons of obscure birth into undue distinction." For Anne, the Asp and Wentworth's early career are bound up with the memory of their youthful attachment and the pain of its dissolution. The ship was eventually broken up, but it had already served its purpose in launching Wentworth on his prosperous path.