Whilst reading all the horror stories coming from Haiti, it is worth remembering that Haiti is opposite Jamaica where there was a devastating earthquake at Port Royal in 1692, which raised many of the same problems. Perhaps 5000 of a population of 6,500 died, but only 1/5th of those died in the actual earthquake. The [...]
Sam's Blog
A Visit to the Temeraire in 1806
January 18, 2010 – 5:42 am
Mr Giles Laurent has kindly got in touch with a great piece concerning the Temeraire in 1806 as she lay at Portsmouth.
An ancestor of his visited the ship in 1806, aged seventeen, and wrote about her experience in her diary.
‘It was a melancholy thing to see the ravages made by the Enemy (her mother was from [...]
Richard Powell of the Temeraire
January 11, 2010 – 3:06 am
Mr Colin Powell has kindly got in touch with some information about Richard Powell, who fought on the Temeraire at Trafalgar.
Richard Powell was born in Harwich on 13 August 1787 and was eighteen years old at the time of Trafalgar. Both his parents died when he was six years old and he was cared for [...]
Google Earth spills naval secrets
December 22, 2009 – 8:49 am
I have just finished writing a piece on British naval reconnaissance at Brest in the early years of the Revolutionary Wars and wondered how easy it would be to do the same thing now – using Google Earth. The results are unsurprisingly astonishing, and someone has already been there: see www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/02/google_earth_base_shocker/
Battle of Lagos Update
December 10, 2009 – 1:17 am
Domick Penrose kindly got in touch with some new information about the Battle of Lagos.
Falmouth Packet Captain Robert Lovell heard the news of the battle when his packet, the Prince Frederick, arrived from Lisbon. He noted:
‘This day the Prince Frederick Packet is arrived express from Lisbon in eleven days with an announcement that Admiral Boscawen [...]
The Battle of Lagos, 1759
August 17, 2009 – 10:01 am
250 years ago this week the Royal Navy fought a battle off Lagos in Portugal that is often overlooked, but which was crucial to the foundation of the naval mastery that Britain enjoyed after 1759. The French Mediterranean fleet was harried by Edward Boscawen until they were forced to split up. Those few that stayed [...]
