HMS Queen Charlotte (1810)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Queen Charlotte.

Detail of Robert Salmon's The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers
History
United Kingdom
NameHMS Queen Charlotte
NamesakeCharlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Ordered9 July 1801
BuilderDeptford Dockyard
Laid downOctober 1805
Launched17 July 1810[1]
CommissionedJanuary 1813
FateSold, 12 January 1892
General characteristics [2]
Class & type104-gun first-rate ship of the line
Tons burthen2289 bm
Length190 ft 0+1⁄2 in (57.9 m) (gundeck)
Beam52 ft 5+3⁄4 in (16.0 m)
Depth of hold22 ft 4 in (6.8 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Armament
  • Gundeck: 30 × 32-pounder guns
  • Middle gundeck: 30 × 24-pounder guns
  • Upper gundeck: 30 × 12-pounder guns
  • QD: 2 × 12-pounder guns + 12 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 × 12-pounder guns + 2 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Poop deck: 6 × 18-pounder carronades

HMS Queen Charlotte was a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 July 1810 at Deptford. She replaced the first Queen Charlotte sunk in 1800.

Career

Queen Charlotte spent a short amount of time as part of the West Africa Squadron in 1816, formed in 1808 in response to An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain that was passed in 1807. The role of the Squadron was to patrol the West Africa coastline, intercepting slaving vessels. Most notably, Queen Charlotte gained notoriety when she captured the Le Louis – a French slaving vessel – on 11 March 1816. Le Louis was taken off Cape Mesurado having set sail from Martinique in January 1816.[3] Following engagement, the ship was taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the Admiralty courts legally confirmed the free status of those on board who had been enslaved. They were then consigned by the colonial government to a variety of unfree labour apprenticeships as part of their transition to becoming 'free subjects'.

HMS Queen Charlotte's seizure of the French slave ship Le Louis, however, caused a legal controversy that tested and defeated Britain's right to search suspected and actual slave ships by challenging the Vienna Declaration of 1815. Sir William Scott, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, ruled that the right to visit and search royal warships did not exist in peacetime, except in the case of piracy, but because the transatlantic slave trade was not piracy under the Law of Nations, nor had the French declared the transatlantic slave trade to be piracy, the Royal Navy had no right to intercept Le Louis. Scott added:

"A nation is not justified in assuming rights that do not belong to her merely because she means to apply them to a laudable purpose; nor in setting out upon a moral crusade of converting other nations by unlawful force..."[4]

He ended by stating that no government could "force the way to liberation of Africa by trampling on the independence of other states of Europe."

Later that year, Queen Charlotte was Lord Exmouth's flagship during the Bombardment of Algiers in 1816. On 17 September 1817, Linnet, a tender to Queen Charlotte, seized a smuggled cargo of tobacco. The officers and crew of Queen Charlotte shared in the prize money.[Note 1] On 17 December 1823, Queen Charlotte was driven into the British ship Brothers at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.[6] Brothers suffered severe damage in the collision.[6]

  • Representations of Queen Charlotte
  • Council of War on board the 'Queen Charlotte', commanded by Lord Exmouth, prior to the Bombardment of Algiers, 26 August 1816, Nicolaas Baur (1818)
  • Detail of Robert Salmon's The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers

Figurehead

When HMS Queen Charlotte was sold for breaking up, the figurehead was removed and mounted high up on the gabled end of an accommodation block near the entrance to the gunnery training base on Whale Island. When those buildings were demolished in 2004, the figurehead was removed and placed upon a plinth at the entrance to HMS Excellent (shore establishment).[7]

The figurehead is now in the collection of the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

Notes

  1. ^ A first-class share was worth £101 18s 8d; a sixth-class share, that of an ordinary seaman, was worth 8s 2¼d.[5]

Citations

  1. ^ The Times (London), Wednesday, 18 July 1810, p.3
  2. ^ Lavery, Ships of the Line Vol. 1, p. 187.
  3. ^ Bryant, Jonathan M. (2015). Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
  4. ^ Report of the Directors of the African Institution Read at the Annual General Meeting: On the . London: African Institution. 1818. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  5. ^ "No. 17360". The London Gazette. 16 May 1818. p. 892.
  6. ^ a b "The Marine List". Lloyd's List (5865): 78 v. 19 December 1823.
  7. ^ Pulvertaft, David (2009). The Warship Figureheads of Portsmouth (1st Colour ed.). UK: The History Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0752450766.

References

  • Lavery, Brian (1983): The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (revised ed.). Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.
  • Media related to HMS Queen Charlotte (ship, 1810) at Wikimedia Commons
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