HMS Briseis (1808)

History
Name: HMS Briseis
Builder: John King, Upnor
Launched: 19 May 1808
Fate: Wrecked 5 November 1816
General characteristics
Class and type: Cherokee-class brig-sloop
Tons burthen: 239 bm
Length: 90 ft 3 in (27.51 m)
Beam: 24 ft 7 in (7.49 m)
Draught: 11 ft 0 in (3.35 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Brig
Complement: 75 men and boys
Armament:

HMS Briseis was a 10-gun Cherokee-class Royal Navy brig launched in 1808 at Upnor, on the River Medway.

James Clark Ross joined the Navy in April 1812 and served in this ship under the command of his uncle, John Ross.[1]

On 25 October 1810 Briseis and Snake were in company at the recapture of Ulrica Wilhelmina.[2]


Loss

Commander George Dommett sailed Briseis on 24 October 1816 from Trinidad, Cuba, bound for Nassau. On 5 November she sighted unknown land and Dommett sailed closer to attempt an identification of their location. He hove-to for the night off shore only to discover that a current was taking her inshore. Although the crew tried to save her, she grounded. Next morning she fell on her side and filled with water. The crew took to the boats and reached shore safely. There they discovered that they were at Point Pedras, about nine miles west of Bahia Honda on Cuba's northern coast.[3]

The subsequent courtmartial faulted both Dommett's performance, and that of the Master. It sentenced Dommett to two years loss of seniority for "great want of attention". It placed the Master at the bottom of the list of Masters; he was not employed again as a Master for two years.[3]

In fiction

Briseis appears as part of Jack Aubrey's squadron in Patrick O'Brian's The Hundred Days, where she is described as "the little Briseis, one of that numerous class called coffin-brigs" (however, the real Briseis did not serve in the Mediterranean, where the novel's action is set).

Citations and references

Citations

  1. ↑ Clements Robert Markham (23 August 2012). The Royal Geographical Society and the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76: A Report. Cambridge University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-108-04971-9.
  2. ↑ "No. 16463". The London Gazette. 12 March 1811. p. 485.
  3. 1 2 Hepper (1994), pp.154-5.

References

  • Michael Phillips' Ships of the Old Navy
  • Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
  • Hepper, David J. (1994) British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. (Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot). ISBN 0-948864-30-3
  • James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
  • "HMS Briseis". Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels.

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