Royal Charlotte (ship)

Last updated

Since the 1760s, there have been numerous vessels named Royal Charlotte, for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of King George III.

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the wife of King George III. She served as Queen of Great Britain and Queen of Ireland from her wedding in 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms in 1801, after which she was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1818. She was also the Electress of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire until the promotion of her husband to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814, after which she was also queen consort of Hanover.

George III of the United Kingdom King of Great Britain and Ireland

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg ("Hanover") in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

Contents

Atlantic slave trade slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean between the 16th and 19th centuries

The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from central and western Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders, who brought them to the Americas. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies especially were dependent on the supply of secure labour for the production of commodity crops, making goods and clothing to sell in Europe. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires.

Bristol Place in England

Bristol is a city and county in South West England with a population of 459,300. The wider district has the 10th-largest population in England. The urban area population of 724,000 is the 8th-largest in the UK. The city borders North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, with the cities of Bath and Gloucester to the south-east and north-east, respectively. South Wales lies across the Severn estuary.

Antigua island in the West Indies, Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua, also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the West Indies. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Barbuda became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981.

  • Royal Charlotte (1774 ship), launched at Bombay in 1774 and destroyed in an explosion in 1797.
  • Ship of 342 tons (bm), Captain Thomas Bruce, 23 men, 16 x 12-pounder and 6 x 4-pounder guns (LoM dated 13 February 1801)
  • Brig of 261 tons (bm), Captain Alexander Morris, 30 men, 16 x 6 & 8-pounder guns (LoM dated 15 September 1807)
  • Cutter of 137 tons (bm), Captain Thomas Robertson, 40 men, 2 x 4-pounder and 8 x 9-pounder guns + four swivels (LoM dated 20 May 1808)

Royal Charlotte was launched by Bombay Dockyard in 1774 as a country ship. She made one voyage for the British East India Company in 1796 when she sailed from Calcutta to Britain. There she took on British registry. She sailed back to Calcutta where a lightning bolt ignited her magazine, destroying her in 1797.

Builder's Old Measurement is the method used in England from approximately 1650 to 1849 for calculating the cargo capacity of a ship. It is a volumetric measurement of cubic capacity. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on length and maximum beam. It is expressed in "tons burden", and abbreviated "tons bm".

St Abbs Head

St Abb's Head is a rocky promontory by the village of St Abbs in Berwickshire, Scotland, and a national nature reserve administered by the National Trust of Scotland.

Caithness Historic county in Scotland

Caithness is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.

Royal Charlotte was a three-masted merchant ship launched in 1819. Royal Charlotte carried convicts to Australia in 1825. On her way home to India via Batavia she wrecked on 11 June, but with minimal loss of life.

A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convicts, especially those recently released from prison, is "ex-con" ("ex-convict"). Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences tend not to be described as "convicts".

See also

Six vessels of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMSRoyal Charlotte, after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of King George III.

Four vessels named Royal Charlotte, for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, consort of King George III, sailed as East Indiamen for the British East India Company (EIC) between 1762 and 1815:

Four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Queen Charlotte after Charlotte, queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.

Citations

  1. ↑ Port Cities Bristol - accessed 27 April 2013.
  2. ↑ Letter of Marque (LoM), – accessed 15 May 2011.
  3. ↑ Naval Chronicle, Vol. 1, btwn. p.264 & 268.

Related Research Articles

USS Gallatin (1807) was a post-Revolutionary War sailing vessel that the U.S. Department of the Treasury purchased at Norfolk, Virginia, for the Revenue Cutter Service in December 1807. An explosion on board destroyed her in 1813.

Several ships have borne the name Black Joke, after an English song of the same name.

French frigate <i>Sémillante</i> (1792)

The Sémillante was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was involved in a number of multi-vessel actions against the Royal Navy, particularly in the Indian Ocean. She captured a number of East Indiamen before she became so damaged that the French disarmed her and turned her into a merchant vessel. The British captured her and broke her up in 1809.

Port au Prince was built in France in 1790. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1793 off Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Her original name is currently unknown, but her new owners named her for her place of capture. She became a letter of marque, slave ship, and privateer cum whaler. In 1806 she anchored at a Tongan island where the local inhabitants massacred half her crew and then scuttled her.

Two vessels served the British Royal Navy as His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Hero. Under the command of Lieutenant John Reynolds, the second hired armed cutter Hero captured some 30 merchantmen during the Gunboat War before the Royal Navy returned her to her owners. She was so successful that the Norwegian merchants offered a considerable reward for Hero's capture.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, British vessels captured at least 12 French warships and privateers named Espoir, which means “Hope” in French. In only one case was there mention of an exchange of fire or casualties. In general, the privateers tried to escape, and failing that surrendered.

Junon was a 40-gun Minerve class frigate of the French Navy.

The hired armed lugger Daphne served the Royal Navy from 2 November 1794 to 19 December 1796. She was armed with twenty-two 4-pounder guns and was of 160​6⁄94 tons burthen (bm).

Princess Royal, launched in 1786, was an East Indiaman. She made two complete trips to India for the British East India Company (EIC) and was on her third trip, this one to China, when French privateers or warships captured her on 27 September 1793. The French Navy took her into service in the Indian Ocean as a 34-gun frigate under the name Duguay Trouin. The Royal Navy recaptured her and she returned to British merchant service. In 1797 she performed one more voyage for the EIC. She received a letter of marque in July 1798 but was captured in October 1799 off the coast of Sumatra.

His Majesty's hired armed schooner Lady Charlotte served the British Royal Navy on contract between 28 October 1799 and 28 October 1801. She had a burthen of 120 ​85⁄94 tons (bm), and was armed with twelve 12-pounder carronades. As a hired armed vessel she captured several privateers and recaptured a number of British merchant vessels. After her service with the Royal Navy, she apparently sailed as a letter of marque until the French captured her in 1806.

Mohawk was a ship launched at Beverly, Massachusetts in 1781. She became a privateer, making two voyages. In 1782 the Royal Navy captured her and briefly took her into service under her existing name before selling her in 1783. She then became a merchantman until some investors in Bristol bought her in 1796 and turned her into a privateer again. In 1799 she became a letter of marque, but the French Navy captured her in 1801. She then served in the French Navy, capturing a British privateer in 1805, and was sold in 1814.

Several ships have borne the name Duke of Clarence, named for one or another Duke of Clarence, originally Prince William, the first Duke of Clarence and St Andrews, who acceded to the throne as William IV of the United Kingdom, but later the Duke of Clarence and Avondale:

The French brig Duc de Chartres was built between 1779 and 1780 at Le Havre as a 24-gun privateer. As a privateer she captured one British warship before in 1781 the Royal Navy captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. She then captured several American privateers and armed merchant vessels, and one French naval corvette in a noteworthy single-ship action. The Navy sold Duc de Chartres in 1784.

Butterworth was launched in 1778 in France as the highly successful 32-gun privateer Américaine, of Granville. The British Royal Navy captured her early in 1781. She first appeared in a commercial role in 1784 as America, and was renamed in 1785 as Butterworth. She served primarily as a whaler in the Greenland whale fisheries. New owners purchased her in 1789. She underwent a great repair in 1791 that increased her size by almost 20%. She is most famous for her role in the "Butterworth Squadron", which took her and two ship's tenders on an exploration, sealing, otter fur, and whaling voyage to Alaska and the Pacific Coast of North America. She and her consorts are widely credited with being the first European vessels to enter, in 1794, what is now Honolulu harbour. After her return to England in 1795, Butterworth went on three more whaling voyages to the South Pacific, then Africa, and then the South Pacific again. In 1802 she was outward bound on her fourth of these voyage, this to the South Pacific, when she was lost.

HMS <i>Derwent</i> (1807)

HMS Derwent was launched in 1807 and later that year became one of the first ships sent by the British Royal Navy to suppress the slave trade.

Kitty's Amelia was Jeune Amélie launched in France in 1802. A British letter of marque captured her in 1803 and she became a Liverpool-based slave trader. Between 1804 and 1807 she made four slave-trading voyages but her chief claim to fame is that she performed the last legal slaving voyage for a British vessel. She was reported wrecked in 1809.

British Tar was built in 1797 in Plymouth. She never enters Lloyd's Register under that name, suggesting that she may have been an American vessel that only came to Bristol, and was renamed, shortly before she sailed from Bristol in 1805. In 1805 she made a slave trading voyage during which the French captured her. She became the privateer Revanche, out of Guadeloupe. Revanche fought an inconclusive single-ship action in 1806 with HMS Curieux. The British captured Revanche in 1808.

HMS Duguay Trouin was an 18-gun French privateer sloop launched in 1779 at Le Havre. Surprise captured her in 1780 and the British Royal Navy took her into service under her existing name. It sold Duguay Trouin on 30 October 1783. She then became the West Indiaman Christopher, and later a slaver. She was lost at Charleston in September 1804.

Kingsmill was a French vessel launched in 1793 under a different name, captured in 1798, and sold to British owners who renamed her. She then became a slave ship, making three voyages from Africa to the West Indies. A French privateer captured her in 1804, but she returned to her owners in 1804. In 1807 she became a West Indiaman. In 1814 she became the first ship to trade with India under a license from the British East India Company (EIC) after the EIC lost its monopoly on British trade with India. She was badly damaged in 1821 and subsequently disappears from the registers.

References

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.