HMS Leopard (ship)
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[[Category:Historical ships|Leopard, HMS]] | [[Category:Historical ships|Leopard, HMS]] | ||
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Revision as of 03:12, 25 June 2007
HMS Leopard was a 50-gun ship of the line involved in a serious peacetime incident with the USN Chesapeake in 1807.
The Leopard was launched in 1790. As a 50 gun ship, she was already nearly obsolete, being too small to stand in the line of battle and too large to act as a frigate.
The most notable event in her service occurred in early 1807, she was patrolling near the American coast when she encountered the Chesapeake leaving harbour. In an attempt to recover British deserters (or possibly to press American sailors into the service of the Royal Navy), Captain Salisbury Pryce Humphreys hailed the Chesapeake and requested permission to search it. Commodore James Barron, refused, and the Leopard opened fire, killing a number of men and wounding others including the captain. The Chesapeake surrendered, and Humphreys boarded to search for deserters. Three Americans and a British sailor were captured and later hanged at Halifax. The affair was part of the build-up to the War of 1812. It strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Britain.
In 1812, the Leopard was converted to a troopship. On June 28, 1814, she was en route from England to Quebec when she grounded on Anticosti Island in heavy fog. The ship was lost but the troops and crew were saved.
| SPOILER WARNING: Plot or ending details for "Desolation Island, The Fortune of War and Letter of Marque" follow. |
In the Canon
Jack Aubrey commands the Leopard (known as the "'orrible old Leopard") on a voyage to Australia in Desolation Island. By the end of the voyage in The Fortune of War she is in very poor condition having survived near shipwreck. She underwent makeshift repairs on Desolation Island but, as Aubrey puts it in The Surgeon's Mate, "the ice had given her frame such a wrench that she could not carry any piece of metal -- no good to man or beast: only fit for a transport." The ship's actual history also causes significant difficulties when negotiating with American whalers for assistance in repairing the rudder.
Later in The Letter of Marque, Stephen Maturin takes passage to Sweden aboard the Leopard, now converted to a transport. Again the voyage is eventful with a grounding necessitating the repair of the rudder. However, Maturin is recognised as an old Leopard and treated with respect for the second half of the voyage.
