Donna Maria at the battle of Cabo San Vicente | |
History | |
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Great Britain | |
Name | Asia |
Owner |
|
Builder | Bombay Dockyard |
Launched | 1797 |
Fate | Sold 1805 |
United Kingdom | |
Name | HMS Sir Francis Drake |
Namesake | Francis Drake |
Acquired | 1805 by purchase |
Commissioned | 1808 |
Honours and awards | Naval General Service Medal (NGSM) with clasp "Java" [1] |
Fate | Sold 1825 |
United Kingdom | |
Name | Asia |
Owner | Blythe & Co. |
Acquired | 1825 by purchase |
Fate | Sold 1831 |
Portugal | |
Name | Dona Maria II |
Namesake | Maria II of Portugal |
Acquired | 1831 by purchase |
Fate | Destroyed in an explosion at Macao in 1850 [2] |
General characteristics | |
Tons burthen | 735, [3] [4] or 736, [5] or 740, [6] or 75130⁄94, or 783 [7] [8] (bm) |
Length | 81 ft 9 in (24.9 m) |
Beam | 20 ft 9 in (6.3 m) |
Complement |
|
Armament |
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Asia was built at Bombay Dockyard in 1797. She made at least two voyages for the British East India Company (EIC) before the British Royal Navy purchased her in 1805 in the East Indies. The Royal Navy renamed her HMS Sir Francis Drake and used her as a frigate. She served in the Java campaign of 1811. When she returned to England in 1813 she was refitted as a storeship. Later, she became the flagship, at Newfoundland, for the governors of Newfoundland. The Admiralty sold her in 1825. New owners renamed her Asia and she sailed between Britain and London until 1831 when Portuguese interests purchased her. She then became the frigate Dona Maria II for the Liberal forces that were attempting to install the rightful queen, Dona Maria II, to the throne of Portugal, and overthrow Dom Miguel, who had usurped the throne. In early 1849 conflict developed between the Portuguese government in Macau and the Chinese government over who could collect taxes and tariffs at Macao. Dona Maria II sailed to Macao as part of a small squadron. An internal explosion destroyed her in the harbour on 29 October.
Asia was launched at Bombay in 1797. On 1 December 1799 Captain George McInnes sailed from Bombay, bound for England, on a voyage on behalf of the EIC. Asia was at Cochin on 27 December and the Cape of Good Hope on 24 February 1800. She reached St Helena on 15 March, and arrived at the Downs on 30 May. [9]
Captain McInnes made a second voyage to London on behalf of the EIC, leaving Bombay on 15 March 1802. Asia reached St Helena on 25 May and arrived at Deptford on 30 July. [9]
She appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR) in 1802 with G. Innes, master, "India" as owner, and trade London–India. [10] Asia was listed in 1803 as being registered in Bombay with Smith, Forbes, and Company, and Homajee Bomanjee, owners, and George M'Innes, master. [6] The Register of Shipping (RS), for 1805 showed her with M'Innis, master, Lanby, owner, and trade London–India. [4]
In 1805 the Admiralty purchased Asia in the East Indies. It commissioned her as a fifth rate under the command of Commander James Tait, and named her HMS Sir Francis Drake. [11]
On 13 May 1810 Sir Francis Drake was in company with HMS Cornelia and Diana when they captured some slaves at Diego Garcia. [lower-alpha 1]
Harris wrote a letter on 1 August reporting the capture, off Java, of a Batavian ship of eight guns and 33 men, a schooner of six guns and 13 men, and a coasting vessel. [13]
A second letter, dated 5 August, reported that boats from HMS Belliqueux and Sir Francis Drake destroyed a French privateer ketch and two gun boats in Bantam Bay. Lieutenant Joseph Prior of Belliquex commanded the boat party. [13] The action took place under fire from shore batteries. A seaman from Sir Francis Drake was killed; he was the sole British casualty from the operation. [14] [lower-alpha 2]
A third letter, dated 1 October, reported that between 9 August and 8 September, Sir Francis Drake's boats destroyed seven Batavian gunboats, five pirate prows, and 35 Dutch trading vessels. [13]
In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the NGSM with clasp "Java" to all surviving claimants from the campaign.
In 1812 Commander Henry Peachy replaced Harris, only to be replaced in 1813 by Captain Barrington Reynolds. Sir Francis Drake arrived at Deptford on 28 May. Captain John Maples briefly took command in August, before she went into Ordinary. [11]
Between July and September Sir Francis Drake underwent fitting as a storeship. Mr. Thomas Hoskins commissioned her in 1814 as a storeship for Gibraltar. [11] She remained there until the end of 1815, when she returned to England.
Between February and May 1817 she underwent fitting as a flagship to sail to Newfoundland. Captain John Bowker commissioned her in February at Woolwich and then on 22 August sailed her to Newfoundland. At Newfoundland she was the flagship first for Vice-admiral Francis Pickmore, and after he died in February 1818, Vice-admiral Sir Charles Hamilton. [11] Pickmore was also governor of Newfoundland and after his death Captain Bowker, served as acting governor until Governor Sir Charles Hamilton arrived.
Lieutenant Valentine Munbee took command on 18 December 1819. [11] At that time her armament was reduced to 3 guns for signalling purposes. Many of her officers and crew returned home in HMS Egeria. She remained in Newfoundland until at least 1822. She was paid off at Chatham in 1824.
Disposal: "The Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" offered "Sir Francis Drake storeship, 751 tons", "Lying at Deptford", for sale on 13 October 1825. [16] [lower-alpha 3]
Blythe Brothers, her new owners, returned the ship's name to Asia. She appeared in Lloyd's Register (LR) and the Register of Shipping for 1827 with J.Webster, master, Blythe, owner, and trade London–India. [8] She had undergone a large repair in 1827. [17] Lloyd's Register and the Register of Shipping for 1832 carried the same information.
In 1831 the ex-Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro, Duke of Braganza, wished to defeat his brother, Dom Miguel, who had usurped the throne of Portugal, and to install Pedro's daughter as the rightful queen, Dona Maria II. Dom Pedro acquired a small squadron that included several vessels purchased in England, one of which was Sir Francis Drake. The Portuguese renamed her Dona Maria II, and classed her as a 44-gun frigate. [2] Dom Pedro appointed Captain George Sartorius admiral of his small fleet.
Sartorius conveyed Pedro's expeditionary force from the Azores and safely effected their Landing at Mindelo in July 1832, from where they were able to occupy Porto. [18]
Despite this success, Sartorius also had to contend with many difficulties; promised supplies rarely arrived, and his crews consequently became mutinous or deserted. Sartorius spent a great deal of his own money in keeping the fleet together. When he threatened to sail off with it until he was paid, Dom Pedro sent two English officers to the flagship; one to arrest Sartorius, the other to take command. Sartorius promptly confined them both aboard. In June 1833, Sartorius handed command over to Captain Sir Charles Napier.
Dona Maria was one of the five vessels of the naval squadron under Admiral Napier that decisively defeated the Miguelista forces at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 5 July 1833. Dona Maria II, under the command of Captain Henry, captured Princess Real, of 56 guns and 640 men, by boarding. Donna Maria II had suffered four men killed and 16 wounded.
In early 1849 conflict developed between the Portuguese government in Macau and the Chinese government over who could collect taxes and tariffs at Macao.
After the assassination on 22 August 1849 of the governor of Macao, Amaral, Portugal sent out three ships for the protection of Macau, the frigate Donna Maria and the corvettes Dom João I and Iris. [lower-alpha 4] They brought with them Admiral Alexandrino da Cunha to take up the post of Governor. They also brought marines from Goa. Admiral da Cunha, however, died of natural causes on 6 July 1850, some six weeks after his arrival at Macao. [21]
On 29 October Donna Maria, Dom João I, and Iris were in Macao Roads, off Taipa. The sloop-of-war USS Marion was nearby. The vessels fired a salute at noon on occasion of the birthday of Ferdinand II of Portugal. [21]
At 2:30 p.m. Dona Maria II exploded and sank. Dom João I, Iris, and Marion sent their boats, but they were only able to rescue a few men, some of whom subsequently died. [21] The first reports were that some 200 lives had been lost. [22]
The crew, except for the marines, were lascars from Goa. Thirty-six crew members were ashore and so survived. Captain d'Assis e Silva of Dona Maria II and 187 officers and crew were killed, as were three French prisoners and some 40 Chinese who were working on board or were in junks and sampans alongside. [21]
Nothing certain was known of the cause of the explosion. One story was that the explosion was a deliberate act of sabotage by the keeper of the powder magazine who held a grudge against the captain. [21]
After the loss of Donna Maria and the death of Admiral da Cunha the Portuguese abandoned any plans to retaliate against the Chinese for Amaral's assassination. [21]
Dona Maria II "the Educator" or "the Good Mother", was Queen of Portugal from 1826 to 1828, and again from 1834 to 1853.
Admiral John Holloway was an officer of the Royal Navy who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, before serving as Governor of Newfoundland between 1807 and 1809.
The Battle of Cape St. Vincent was a naval encounter off Cape St. Vincent between a Liberal fleet under the command of British naval officer Charles Napier against a Miguelite fleet under the command of Portuguese naval officer Manuel Marreiros, which was fought on 5 July 1833 during the Liberal Wars and resulted in a decisive victory for the Liberal fleet. Over the course of the battle, the Liberal fleet, despite being significantly outnumbered by the Miguelite fleet and lacking any ships of the line compared to the Miguelite four, managed to close with the Miguelites, board their ships and engage in hand-to-hand combat. The early exchange of cannon fire between the two fleets went on for some time before Napier decided that his numerically inferior squadron could not last long against the Miguelite fleet, and sailed his ships directly towards the Miguelite fleet.
Francis William Drake was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence, rising to the rank of vice-admiral of the red.
The Battle of Cape Passaro, also known as Battle of Avola or Battle of Syracuse, was a major naval battle fought on 11 August 1718 between a fleet of the British Royal Navy under Admiral Sir George Byng and a fleet of the Spanish Navy under Rear-Admiral Antonio de Gaztañeta. It was fought off Cape Passaro, in the southern tip of the island of Sicily of which Spain had occupied. Spain and Britain were at peace, but Britain was already committed to supporting the ambitions of the Emperor Charles VI in southern Italy.
HMS Raleigh was an unarmoured iron or "sheathed"-masted frigate completed in 1874. She was one of a series of three designed by Sir Edward Reed. The other two iron-hulled frigates of independent design were HMS Inconstant and HMS Shah. The Controller originally intended to build six of these big frigates, but only three were ordered in view of their high cost. They retained the traditional broadside layout of armament, with a full rig of masts and sails. Although widely believed to be named after Sir Walter Raleigh, the ship was in fact named for George of Raleigh.
HMS Wellesley was a 74-gun third rate, named after the Duke of Wellington, and launched in 1815. She captured Karachi for the British, and participated in the First Opium War, which resulted in Britain gaining control of Hong Kong. Thereafter she served primarily as a training ship before gaining the almost surely unwanted distinction of being the last British ship of the line to be sunk by enemy action and the only one to have been sunk by an air-raid.
HCS Bombay, later HMS Bombay and HMS Ceylon, was a teak-built fifth rate, 38-gun wooden warship built in the Bombay Dockyard for the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) and launched in 1793. The Royal Navy purchased her in 1805 and renamed her HMS Bombay. She served with the Royal Navy under that name until 1 July 1808, when she became HMS Ceylon. She was sold at Malta in 1857 and broken up in 1861.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Rose Sartorius was an officer of the British Royal Navy. After serving as a junior officer during the Napoleonic Wars, he was present, as a post-captain, at the surrender of Napoleon Bonaparte to Captain Frederick Maitland of Bellerophon at Rochefort. He later commanded the navy of Dom Pedro in the Portuguese Civil Wars. Dom Pedro was attempting to defeat his brother Dom Miguel, who had usurped the throne of Portugal, and to install Pedro's daughter as the rightful queen, Dona Maria II.
HMS Galatea was an Apollo-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy. The frigate was built at Deptford Dockyard, London, England and launched on 31 August 1810. In 1811 she participated in the Battle of Tamatave, which battle confirmed British dominance of the seas east of the Cape of Good Hope for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars. She was hulked in 1836 and broken up in 1849.
HMS Doris was a 36-gun Perseverance-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy that served between 1808 and 1829.
Singeing the King of Spain's Beard is the derisive name given to a series of attacks by the English privateer Francis Drake against the Spanish in the summer of 1587, beginning in April with a raid on Cádiz. This was an attack on the Spanish naval forces assembling in the Bay of Cádiz in preparation for the planned expedition against England. Much of the Spanish fleet was destroyed, and substantial supplies were destroyed or captured. There followed a series of raiding parties against several forts along the Portuguese coast. A Spanish treasure ship, returning from the Indies, was also captured. The damage caused by the English delayed Spanish preparations for the Armada by at least a year.
Charles George Elers Napier, was a British naval officer.
HMS Modeste was a 36-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She had previously been a ship of the French Navy under the name Modeste. Launched in France in 1786, she served during the first actions of the French Revolutionary Wars until being captured while in harbour at Genoa, in circumstances disputed by the French and British, and which created a diplomatic incident. Taken into British service she spent the rest of the French Revolutionary and most of the Napoleonic Wars under the white ensign. She served with distinction in the East Indies, capturing several privateers and enemy vessels, including the French corvette Iéna. She also saw service in a variety of roles, as a troopship, a receiving ship, and a floating battery, until finally being broken up in 1814, as the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close.
HMS Mediator was a Roebuck-class 44-gun fifth rate of the Royal Navy. She was built and served during the American War of Independence, but was reduced to a storeship and renamed HMS Camel in 1788. She spent the French Revolutionary and part of the Napoleonic Wars in this capacity before being broken up in 1810.
HMS Jaseur was originally the French Navy brig Jaseur that the Royal Navy captured in 1807 and took into service under the same name. She participated in one campaign and was lost in August 1808.
A number of ships have been named Asia, including:
Sir Edward Hughes was launched in 1784 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She spent four years as a country ship, i.e., sailing in the East Indies but without going to Britain. Then between 1788 and 1803 she made eight voyages to India and China for the EIC. In 1804 the EIC sold Sir Edward Hughes to the British Royal Navy, which commissioned her as a 38-gun frigate. The Navy renamed her Tortoise in 1807 and converted her to a storeship in 1808. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars she became variously a coal depot, a hulk, and then a convict transport. In 1844 she became a receiving ship at Ascension Island. She was lost there in 1859, or broken up there in 1860, or 1863.
Dover Castle was launched in 1798 as an East Indiaman for the British East India Company (EIC). She made six voyages for the EIC. During the second she transported EIC troops to Macao to augment the Portuguese forces there, but the authorities there refused them permission to land. In 1814 Dover Castle was sold and she served for a half-dozen years as a London-based transport. She was hulked c.1820 and finally broken up in 1826.
HMS Diana was variously described as a brig or cutter. Her origins are currently obscure, but the British Royal Navy acquired her at Bombay in 1807. In her short career she captured three armed vessels, one in a notable single-ship action. She was condemned in 1810.