by Richard Hiscocks | May 6, 2020 | Latest News
I am pleased to post this request from the co-editors of the Trafalgar Chronicle: CALL FOR PAPERS TRAFALGAR CHRONICLE PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 2021 THEME: GEORGIAN NAVY ENCOUNTERS WITH INDIGENOUS CULTURES AND ENSLAVED POPULATIONS For four decades, the Trafalgar...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jun 13, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
?At daybreak on the glorious morning of Wednesday 19 June, some twenty miles south of Start Point, Devon, the Nymphe 36, commanded by Captain Edward Pellew, and two days out of his home port of Falmouth bound for Spithead, found herself in the company of the one...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jul 31, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Lord Hood’s Cunning Plan Confuses Captain Lumsdaine – July 1793 When the Mediterranean fleet was anchored off Gibraltar prior to sailing for the blockade of Toulon, the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, formulated a devious plan that was...
by Richard Hiscocks | Aug 5, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Channel Fleet’s Summer Cruise – July-August 1793 Conversant with Admiralty orders dated 3 July, the Channel fleet of fifteen sail of the line, seven frigates, a sloop, and a fireship under the command of Admiral Lord Howe put to sea from St....
by Richard Hiscocks | Sep 13, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Boston v Embuscade – 31 July 1793 During the early days of the war the French frigate Embuscade 36, Captain Jean BaptisteFrançois Bompart, had enjoyed a profitable run against the British shipping in North American waters, capturing some sixty-odd...
by Richard Hiscocks | Sep 27, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Occupation of Toulon – August to December 1793 Throughout the summer of 1793 there had been bitter factional disputes between those various groups seeking power in Revolutionary France, and when in June the Girondists found themselves expelled from...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 24, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
?Having been furnished on 2 June with news of the outbreak of war against France from George Baldwin, the consul-general at Alexandria, the British authorities at Madras under the governor, Sir Charles Oakely, immediately took steps to take possession of the French...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 2, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Occupation of Cape Nicolas Mole, Saint-Domingue – 23 September 1793 With the principles of the French Revolution spreading to her colonies in the Caribbean, there was great concern amongst the influential plantation owners as to their future, and...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 15, 2019 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Commodore Linzee attacks Forneilli, San Fiorenzo – 1 October 1793 Whilst Vice-Admiral Lord Hood was attempting to hold Toulon for the French royalists, a detachment of three sail of the line and two frigates under the command of Commodore Robert...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 5, 2020 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Crescent v Reunion – 20 October 1793 With war against France imminent, Captain James Saumarez was appointed to the eighteen pounder frigate Crescent 36 in January 1793, and after taking on volunteers from the Channel Islands and Exmouth to bring his crew...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 16, 2020 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
Thames v Uranie – 24 October 1793 At 9.30 on the misty morning of 24 October, the twelve-pounder frigate Thames 32, Captain James Cotes, cruising on a west south-westerly wind in the north-western reaches of the Bay of Biscay, about two hundred and fifty...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 23, 2020 | 1793, The French Revolutionary War 1793-1802
The Channel Fleet’s Autumn Cruise – October to December 1793 On 12 October the Admiralty issued the commander-in-chief of the Channel fleet, Admiral Lord Howe, with new orders to the effect that as soon as he was joined by the Defence 74, Captain...
by Richard Hiscocks | Mar 4, 2019 | 1778, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
The Capture of St. Pierre and Miquelon – 14 September 1778 When the Treaty of Paris brought a conclusion to the Seven Years War in 1763, France lost all her territories in North America bar the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, which lay about fourteen...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 24, 2019 | 1781, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
?Enjoying a fresh breeze and in fine weather, the Ulysses 44, Captain John Thomas, was cruising to the north of Saint-Domingue, some six or seven miles from the North Caicos in the Turks and Caicos Islands, when at six o?clock on the evening of 5 June two sail were...
by Richard Hiscocks | Feb 19, 2019 | 1777, American Revolutionary War 1776-1783
?On 10 June the Admiralty wrote to Lieutenant Thomas Gaborian of the cutter Sherbourne 6, based at Dartmouth, ordering him to put to sea and cruise between the ?le de Batz and ?le de Br?hat on the northern coast of Brittany to seek out a small American schooner...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 22, 2019 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
1792 Overview In 1792 war clouds gathered over Britain as revolutionary France took up arms against her continental neighbours. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, was initially averse to hostilities and was more intent on making economies in the armed forces,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 26, 2018 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
Lieutenant Perkins is rescued from Saint-Domingue – 24 February 1792 By February 1792 the island of Saint-Domingue, the modern-day Haiti, had been engaged in a very turbulent and bitter civil war for the best part of a year, brought about by the French...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 3, 2019 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
?Towards the end of 1791 Lieutenant Philip Beaver, the son of a clergyman, and prot?g? of the late Vice-Admiral Sir Joshua Rowley, became involved in a plan to purchase and then colonise the uncultivated island of Bulama off the coast of Sierra Leone. This island is...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 10, 2019 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
?In June 1777 the then 45 year-old Captain Adam Duncan of the Royal Navy had married 28 year-old Henrietta Dundas, the daughter of the Right Hon. Robert Dundas of Arniston, who had been the M.P for Midlothian from 1754-61, and in 1760 had become the Lord President of...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 14, 2019 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
George Collier and the Shipwreck of the Winterton – 22 August 1792 For many sea-officers lacking interest and patronage the opportunities for employment in the navy during times of peace could be scarce indeed, and it was not unusual for these less...
by Richard Hiscocks | Jan 22, 2019 | 1792, The Peace of 1784-1792
The Navy’s role in Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China – 1792-4 For many years there had been frustration in mercantile circles, in particular within the East India Company, at the restrictions placed on British trade by the Chinese authorities,...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 18, 2018 | 1791, The Peace of 1784-1792
?March Vice-Admiral Lord Hood began to commission a fleet of thirty-six sail of the line when concern over Russia?s territorial ambitions threatened to invoke Britain?s Triple Alliance with Prussia and the Netherlands. Eventually, opposition to a possible war in...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 20, 2018 | 1791, The Peace of 1784-1792
?Although Britain had been at peace for the best part of eight years, her government had maintained a robust attitude to European affairs, as evidenced by its re-commissioning of the fleet for the Dutch Armament of 1788 and the Spanish Armament of 1790. One particular...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 29, 2018 | 1791, The Peace of 1784-1792
?Following the signing of the Nookta Sound Convention which brought an end to the Spanish Armament in October 1790, the sloop Discovery, Commander George Vancouver, accompanied by a tender, the Chatham, Lieutenant William Broughton, were sent to reclaim those...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 9, 2018 | 1791, The Peace of 1784-1792
Captain Bligh’s Second Breadfruit Mission – August 1791-August 1793 It would be fair to say that William Bligh’s first mission to the Pacific Ocean had not been an unqualified success. Sailing in command of the Bounty in December 1787 with...
by Richard Hiscocks | Dec 18, 2018 | 1791, The Peace of 1784-1792
?Throughout the ten years following the end of the American Revolutionary War there had been no substantive threat to peace between France and Britain in home waters, but on the sub-continent of India the conflicts of interest between the two empires had ensured that...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 9, 2018 | 1790, The Peace of 1784-1792
A crisis known as the ?Spanish Armament? developed during April that was by far the most serious since the end of the American Revolutionary war. Britain and Spain clashed over the rights to Nookta Sound on the North American Pacific coast, and although the...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 8, 2018 | 1790, The Peace of 1784-1792
?During the course of his last voyage of discovery into the Pacific Ocean the late Captain James Cook had visited what was later to be known as Vancouver Island in 1778, and had found a deep water anchorage on the western coast which he had named Nookta Sound, an...
by Richard Hiscocks | Oct 9, 2018 | 1790, The Peace of 1784-1792
?In May 1790, with war clouds gathering over Britain as a result of the Nookta Sound dispute with Spain, Captain Charles Morice Pole was appointed to the frigate Melampus 36. Unfortunately, he was soon to find that rather than engaging in conflict with the enemy he...
by Richard Hiscocks | Nov 1, 2018 | 1790, The Peace of 1784-1792
The Endymion 44 had been launched in 1779 and had seen service in the West Indies during the American War of Revolution under the command of Captains Philip Carteret and Edward Tyrrell Smith, being present under the latter officer at the Battle of the Saintes...
