HMS Persian (1809)
HMS Persian was a Cruizer class brig-sloop built by Daniel List and launched at Cowes in 1809.[1] She captured two privateers before she wrecked in 1813.
Service
She was commissioned under Commander Samuel Colquitt and spent her first year cruising in Channel.[1] Colquitt received promotion to Post captain on 21 October, the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. Her next captain was Commander Charles Bertram, who was appointed on 21 October.[1]
On 5 April 1811, the station at Beachy Head signaled to Persian that a smuggling vessel was discharging her cargo nearby. Persian set out; after about eight hours she saw a lugger on the lee bow heading for France. An hour and several broadsides later, the vessel struck. She was the 14-gun privateer Ambuscade with a crew of 36, though she normally sailed with 63. She was under the command of Nicholas Augustine Briganda and had been out from Dieppe for nearly two days.[2]
On 3 March 1812 Persian sent into Plymouth the American brig Hannah, of New York, from Savannah, with a cargo of timber. A French privateer had taken the Hannah before Persian retook her. Peruvian then set out to try and find the privateer, but without success.
On 27 March, Persian, out of Jersey, chased a lugger standing to the westward. After three hours and several broadsides the lugger struck and proved to be the French privateer Petit Jean.[2] She had had to throw eight of her 16 guns overboard during a gale that also washed away eight of her crew. She was under the command of Francois Clemence and had left her home port of Dieppe eight days before.
Loss
On 3 April 1813, Persian sailed for the West Indies, still under Bertram's command.[1] On 26 June she was wrecked on the Silver Cays (or Keys) Bank, just north of the island of Hispaniola, after having set out from Port au Prince earlier that day. Bertram tried to lighten Persian by throwing some guns and stores overboard with the result that she floated off, only to hit another reef. Eventually, despite the crew's exertions, she broke her back and foundered. The crew crowded into her four boats (a makeshift raft broke apart) and on 28 June they came ashore between Cabo Frances (Old Cape François) and Cabo Cabron in San Domingo.[3][4] None of her crew of 121 men was lost.[5] However, 11 seamen took advantage of the opportunity to desert the Navy.[6]
The court martial, under Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, convened on Goliath at the Saints in October determined that the loss was the result of either a strong southerly current setting at a rate of 4 knots or that the Admiralty charts showed the shoals 20 miles too far to the south.[6] The court praised the conduct of Bertram, his officers and his crew. Bertram received his promotion to Post Captain on 7 June 1814, but never served again.
References
- Gilly, William O. S. and William Stephen Gilly (1850) Narratives of shipwrecks of the Royal Navy : between 1793 and 1849, compiled principally from official documents in the Admiralty. (London: J.W. Parker).
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell). ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
- Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-030-2.
- Marshall, John (1823-35) Royal naval biography, or, Memoirs of the services of all the flag-officers, superannuated rear-admirals, retired-captains, post-captains, and commanders, whose names appeared on the Admiralty list of sea officers at the commencement of the present year, or who have since been promoted. (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown).
- Marx, Robert F. (1987) Shipwrecks in the Americas. (New York: Dover). ISBN 9780486255149
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
