In C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novel Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, Hornblower's squadron consists of three frigates, and a couple of dozen brigs and schooners. In one section of the novel circumstances require Hornblower to hoist his flag in the very small schooner HMS Crab. In the novel Forester describes the schooner as having a crew of 16. Cecil Scott Forester is the pen name of Cecil Smith (August 27, 1899 - April 2, 1966), an English novelist whose rose to fame with tales of adventure with military themes, notably the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series (being filmed with Ioan Gruffudd as Horatio Hornblower) about naval warfare during the... Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, originally the protagonist of a series of novels by C. S. Forester, and later the subject of films and television programs. ... Sailing frigates were 4th, 5th, or 6th-rated ships in the rating system of the Royal Navy. ... Two-masted fishing schooner A schooner is a type of sailing ship characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts. ...

Readers who would like to visualize how small a vessel a schooner this size would be, can visit the web-site of the reproduction of the HMS Sultana. The Sultana website (http://www.schoonersultana.com/education_pages/wood_water_beef.htm) says that the 52 ton Sultana, with her crew of 25, was the smallest schooner ever entered on the Royal Navy lists. HMS Sultana was a small Royal Navy schooner that patrolled the American coast from 1768 through 1772, preventing smuggling and collecting duties. ...

So the vessel Forester described was smaller than any actual Royal Naval vessels. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ...