Liverpool was commissioned under Captain Arthur Farquhar in May 1814.[1] Her first commission was very brief, though. She escorted convoys to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec. She then served at the Cape Station before returning to Deptford to be paid off on 3 April 1816. First, though, she captured the French schooner Circonstance on 21 October 1815. Circonstance was carrying 67 slaves.[2][lower-alpha 1]
On 5 Match 1816, Liverpool was driven ashore and severely damaged at Dover, Kent, England.[3] She was later refloated and taken in to The Downs.[4] In 1817 she was laid up at Deptford.[5]
In 1818, Liverpool was re-commissioned under Captain Francis Augustus Collier. He sailed her to join the East Indies Station, sailing via Mauritius and Trincomalee. While at Port Louis she captured four slave vessels. In the middle of 1819 she captured Deux Amis (29 July), Constance (17 August) and Jenny (24 August). Bounty money was paid for the freed slaves.[6][lower-alpha 2]
Persian Gulf campaign of 1819
Rear Admiral King appointed Captain Collier of Liverpool to command the naval portion of a joint navy-army punitive expedition against the Al Qasimi at Ras Al Khaimah in the Persian Gulf. The naval force consisted of Liverpool, Eden, Curlew, and a number of gun and mortar boats. The Bombay Marine of the East India Company contributed six armed vessels: the 16-gun Teignmouth under the command of Captain Hall, the senior captain, the 16-gun Benares, the 14-gun Aurora, the 14-gun Nautilus, the 12-gun Ariel, and the 12-gun Vestal.[7] Later two frigates and 600 men belonging to the Sultan of Muscat joined the expedition. On the army side, Major General Sir William Keir commanded some 3,000 troops in transports, including the 47th and 65th Regiments of Foot, the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Native Infantry, the flank companies of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Native Infantry and of the Marine Battalion, and half a company of Pioneers. In all, 1,645 European and 1,424 Indian soldiers ('sepoys') and marines took part in the expedition.[8]
The fleet anchored off Ras Al Khaimah on 2 December, landing troops two miles south of the town on 3 December. Collier placed Captain Walpole of Curlew in charge of the gun boats and an armed pinnace to protect the landing, which was, however, unopposed.[9] The bombardment of the town commenced on 6 December, from landed batteries of 12 pound guns and mortars as well as from sea. On 7 December, two 24-pound cannon from Liverpool were added to the land batteries.[10] When the troops stormed the town on 9 December they found that the inhabitants had all fled.[9] The siege cost the British five dead and 52 men wounded. The Al Qasimi reportedly had lost a thousand dead.[9]
On the fall of Ras Al Khaimah, three ships were sent to blockade the nearby harbour at Rams, to the North. They landed a force on 18 December, which fought its way inland through date plantations to the hilltop fort of Dhayah on the 19th. There, 398 men and another 400 women and children held out, without water or effective cover from the sun, for three days under heavy fire until the two 24-pound cannon from Liverpool were once again pressed into use. After enduring two hours of fire from the big guns, which breached the fort's walls, the last of the Al Qasimi surrendered at 10.30 on the morning of the 22nd.[11]
The expeditionary force then blew up the town of Ras Al Khaimah and established a garrison there of 800 sepoys and artillery, before visiting Jazirat Al Hamra, which was found to be deserted. They went on to destroy the fortifications and larger vessels of Umm Al Qawain, Ajman, Fasht, Sharjah, Abu Hail, and Dubai. Ten vessels that had taken shelter in Bahrain were also destroyed.[12] The Royal Navy suffered no casualties during the action.[9]
The action was to result in the signing of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, the first treaty between the British and the Sheikhs of what was formerly known as the Pirate Coast and what would become known as the Trucial Coast. The area is known today as the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Fate
Liverpool carried on serving in the East Indies Station and made a trip to China under Collier. Liverpool returned to the Persian Gulf in August 1821, where she lost a number of her crew to the heat.[13] She was paid off at Bombay in January 1822. Liverpool's captain, officers and crew then transferred to the newly built Ganges and sailed her back to Spithead, arriving on 6 October 1822.[14]
Liverpool was sold at Bombay on 16 April 1822 for £3,780.[1] The buyer apparently was a Persian prince who wanted to use her to suppress piracy in the Persian Gulf.[14]
Notes, citations, and references
Notes
↑ The first-class share of the bounty money for the release of the slaves was worth £111 0s 3d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 16s 5½d.[2]
↑ The first-class share was worth £214 10s 7½d; a sixth-class share was worth £1 17s 10¼d.[6]
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-86176-246-7.
This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.
Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) is one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The city of Ras Al Khaimah, sometimes simply abbreviated to RAK or RAK City, is the capital of the emirate and home to most of the emirate's residents. It is linked to the Islamic trading port of Julfar. Its name in English means "headland of the tent". The emirate borders Oman's exclave of Musandam, and occupies part of the same peninsula. It covers an area of 2,486 km2 (960 sq mi) and has 64 km (40 mi) of beach coastline. As of 2015, the emirate had a population of about 345,000.
Sheikh Sultan bin Saqr Al Qasimi (1781–1866) was the Sheikh of the Al Qasimi and ruler variously of the towns of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, Jazirah Al Hamra and Rams, all now part of the United Arab Emirates. A dependent of the first Saudi Kingdom, his rule over Ras Al Khaimah ran from 1803–1809, when he was deposed by order of the Saudi Amir and restored in 1820, going on to rule until his death in 1866 at the age of 85. He was Ruler of Sharjah from 1814–1866, with a brief disruption to that rule in 1840 by his elder son Saqr. He was a signatory to various treaties with the British, starting with the General Maritime Treaty of 1820 and culminating in the Perpetual Maritime Truce of 1853, which confirmed Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah as Trucial States.
Dhayah Fort is an 18th-century fortification in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is the highest hilltop fort in the UAE and was the site of a battle during the Persian Gulf campaign of 1819, when British troops captured the fort after a brief siege.
The Persian Gulf Campaign, in 1809, was an operation by a British Royal Navy to force the Al Qasimi to cease their raids on British ships in the Persian Gulf, particularly on the Persian and Arab coasts of the Straits of Hormuz. The operation's success was limited as the Royal Navy forces, already heavily involved in the Napoleonic Wars, were unable to permanently suppress the strong fleets of the Al Qasimi of Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah. The expedition did achieve its short-term goals by destroying three Al Qasimi bases and over 80 vessels, including the largest Al Qasimi ship in the region, the converted merchant ship Minerva. Although operations continued into 1810, the British were unable to destroy every Al Qasimi vessel and by 1811 attacks had resumed, although at a lower intensity than previously.
The Al Qasimi is an Arab dynasty in the Persian Gulf that rules Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, today forming two of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. They are one of the longest reigning royal families in the Arabian peninsula.
The General Maritime Treaty of 1820 was a treaty initially signed between the rulers of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Great Britain in January 1820, with the nearby island state of Bahrain acceding to the treaty in the following February. Its full title was, "General Treaty for the Cessation of Plunder and Piracy by Land and Sea, Dated February 5, 1820".
HMS Curlew (1812) was a Royal Navy Cruizer class brig-sloop built by (William) Good & Co., at Bridport and launched in 1812. She served with the Navy for only 10 years. During the War of 1812 she sailed from Halifax and captured several American privateers. Her greatest moment was her role in the 1819 British occupation of Ras al-Khaimah. Curlew was sold in 1822 in Bombay. She then had a 13 or so year career as an opium runner for James Matheson, one of the founders of the firm Jardine Matheson.
Piracy in the Persian Gulf describes the naval warfare that was prevalent until the 19th century and occurred between seafaring Arabs in Eastern Arabia and the British Empire in the Persian Gulf. It was perceived as one of the primary threats to global maritime trade routes, particularly those with significance to British India and Iraq. Many of the most notable historical instances of these raids were conducted by the Al Qasimi tribe. This led to the British mounting the Persian Gulf campaign of 1809, a major maritime action launched by the Royal Navy to bombard Ras Al Khaimah, Lingeh and other Al Qasimi ports. The current ruler of Sharjah, Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi argues in his book The Myth of Piracy in the Gulf that the allegations of piracy were exaggerated by the Honourable East India Company to cut off untaxed trade routes between the Middle East and India.
HCS Aurora, the Honourable East India Company's Ship Aurora, was a sloop-of-war launched at Bombay for the Bombay Marine, the naval arm of the British East India Company (EIC), to protect the trade in the Indian Ocean from pirates. The French captured her in late September 1810, only to have the British recapture her in early December. She returned to the service of the Bombay Marine, assisting the British Government and the Royal Navy in various campaigns in the East Indies and the Persian Gulf. She was still listed on the rolls of the Bombay Marine on 1 January 1828.
Hannah was launched at Bombay Dockyard in 1811. Shortly after she was launched, she sailed to England on a voyage for the British East India Company (EIC), where her owners sold her to British owners. She engaged in a single-ship action in 1814 in which she repelled an American privateer. She participated as a transport in a punitive expedition in 1819-1820 to Ras al-Khaimah in the Persian Gulf. She was last listed in 1833.
In 1819 the British government of India decided to mount an expedition to Ras Al Khaimah to suppress piracy in the Persian Gulf.
Pascoa was launched at Calcutta in 1816. She was a "country ship", trading around India and between India and China. She was a transport in 1819-20 during the British punitive campaign against the Al Qasimi pirates. She was lost in 1836.
The Persian Gulf campaign of 1819 was a British punitive expedition, principally against the Arab maritime force of the Al Qasimi in the Persian Gulf, which embarked from Bombay, India in November 1819 to attack Ras Al Khaimah. The campaign was militarily successful for the British and led to the signing of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820 between the British and the Sheikhs of what was then known as the 'Pirate Coast', would become known as the 'Trucial Coast' after this treaty and the territory that today comprises the United Arab Emirates.
Hassan bin Rahma Al Qasimi was the Sheikh (ruler) of Ras Al Khaimah from 1814–1820. He was accused by the British of presiding over a number of acts of maritime piracy, an assertion he denied. Despite signing a treaty of peace with the British in October 1814, a punitive expeditionary force was mounted against Ras Al Khaimah in December 1819 and Hassan bin Rahma was removed as Sheikh of Ras Al Khaimah, which he ceded to the British in a preliminary agreement to the General Maritime Treaty of 1820.
Sheikh Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi was Ruler of Sharjah, a Trucial State and now one of the United Arab Emirates, from 1866 to 1868 and of Ras Al Khaimah from 1866 to 1867. His short rule was most notable for the means of his accession, which involved the murder of his nephew, and also his death, at the hands of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan in single combat.
Sheikh Rashid bin Matar Al Qasimi was Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah from 1747–1777, as head of the Al Qasimi maritime federation. Rashid bin Matar ruled at a time when maritime violence was prevalent throughout the Persian Gulf, following incursions by the Portuguese and fighting at sea and on land on the Persian Coast between the British and Dutch and the British and French, over 'factories' established on that coast by both maritime powers.
Sheikh Rashid bin Humaid Al Nuaimi was the Ruler of Ajman, one of the Trucial States which today form the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from 1816–1838, leading a force of 50 men to take control of the town from members of the Al Bu Shamis tribe who had settled there and also at Al Heera. At the time, Ajman was a dependency of Sharjah. Five years after his establishment at Ajman, the fort was taken by the Darawisha Bedouin who were removed by the action of the Ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Saqr bin Sultan Al Qasimi.
Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) is the largest city and capital of the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates. It is the sixth-largest city in UAE after Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Al Ain and Ajman.
HCS Vestal was built in 1809 at the Bombay Dockyard for the Bombay Marine, the naval arm of the British East India Company (EIC). She spent much of her career suppressing commerce raiding in the Persian Gulf. Lastly, she figured in a notable action during the First Anglo-Burmese War. She was subsequently condemned as unserviceable and sold for breaking up.
The Perpetual Maritime Truce of 1853 was a treaty signed between the British and the Rulers of the Sheikhdoms of the Lower Gulf, later to become known as the Trucial States and today known as the United Arab Emirates. The treaty followed the effective subjugation of the Qawasim maritime federation and other coastal settlements of the Lower Gulf by British forces following the Persian Gulf campaign of 1819, a punitive expedition mounted from Bombay which sailed against Ras Al Khaimah, and which resulted in the signing of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom
