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HMS Pandora (1779)
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HMS Pandora (1779)
HMS Pandora was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. The vessel is best known for its role in hunting down the Bounty mutineers in 1790, which remains one of the best-known stories in the history of seafaring. Pandora was partially successful by capturing 14 of the mutineers, but wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef on the return voyage in 1791. HMS Pandora is considered to be one of the most significant shipwrecks in the Southern Hemisphere.
Pandora was a 24-gun, 9-pounder, Porcupine-class post ship. The class was designed by Surveyor of the Navy John Williams in 1776; it was an enlarged version of the Sphinx class, also designed by Williams. Ten ships of the class were ordered in total, with the first agreed on 25 June. Pandora was the ninth ship to be ordered, such occurring on 11 February 1778.
Contracted out to Adams & Barnard of Grove Street, Deptford Dockyard, she was laid down on 2 March and launched on 17 May 1779 with the following dimensions: 114 feet 7 inches (34.9 m) along the upper deck and 94 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (28.9 m) along the keel, with a beam of 32 feet 3 inches (9.8 m) and a depth in the hold of 10 feet 3 inches (3.1 m). The ship measured 52438⁄94 tons burthen, having cost £5,716 3s. 10d. to build. The fitting out process was completed at Deptford on 3 July, costing a further £5,909 13s. 10d.
Pandora had a crew complement of 160. She was armed with twenty-two 9-pounder long guns on her upper deck, which armament was supplemented with two 6-pounder long guns on the forecastle.
Pandora's first service was in the Channel during the 1779 threatened invasion by the combined fleets of France and Spain. The ship was deployed in North American waters during the American War Of Independence and saw service as a convoy escort between England and Quebec. On 18 July 1780, while under the command of Captain Anthony Parry, Pandora and Danae captured the American privateer Jack. Then on 2 September, the two British vessels captured the American privateer Terrible. On 14 January Pandora captured the brig Janie. Then on 11 March she captured the ship Mercury. Two days later Pandora and HMS Bellisarius were off the Virginia Capes when they captured the sloop Louis, which had been sailing to Virginia with a cargo of cider and onions. Under Captain John Inglis Pandora captured more merchant vessels. The first was the brig Lively on 24 May 1782. More followed: the ship Mercury and the sloops Port Royal and Superb (22 November 1782), the brig Nestor (3 February 1783), and the ship Financier (29 March). At the end of the American war the Admiralty placed Pandora in ordinary (mothballed) in 1783 at Chatham for seven years.
Pandora was ordered to be brought back into service on 30 June 1790 when war between Great Britain and Spain seemed likely due to the Nootka Crisis. However, in early August 1790, five months after learning of the mutiny on HMS Bounty, the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch the ship to recover the Bounty, capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. Pandora was refitted with four 18-pounder carronades and her nine-pounder guns were reduced to twenty in number.
Pandora sailed from the Solent on 7 November 1790, commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and manned by a crew of 134 men. With his crew was Thomas Hayward, who had been on the Bounty at the time of the mutiny, and left with Bligh in the open boat. At Tahiti they were also assisted by John Brown, who had been left on the island by a British merchant ship, The Mercury.
Unknown to Edwards, twelve of the mutineers, together with four crew who had stayed loyal to William Bligh, had by then already elected to return to Tahiti, after a failed attempt to establish a colony (Fort St George) under Fletcher Christian's leadership on Tubuai, one of the Austral Islands. The disaffected men were living in Tahiti as 'beachcombers', many of them having fathered children with local women. Fletcher Christian's group of mutineers and their Polynesian followers had sailed off and eventually established their settlement on the then uncharted Pitcairn Island. By the time of Pandora's arrival, fourteen of the former Bounty men remained on Tahiti, Charles Churchill having been murdered in a quarrel with Matthew Thompson, who was in turn killed by Polynesians, who considered Churchill their king.
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HMS Pandora (1779)
HMS Pandora was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy launched in May 1779. The vessel is best known for its role in hunting down the Bounty mutineers in 1790, which remains one of the best-known stories in the history of seafaring. Pandora was partially successful by capturing 14 of the mutineers, but wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef on the return voyage in 1791. HMS Pandora is considered to be one of the most significant shipwrecks in the Southern Hemisphere.
Pandora was a 24-gun, 9-pounder, Porcupine-class post ship. The class was designed by Surveyor of the Navy John Williams in 1776; it was an enlarged version of the Sphinx class, also designed by Williams. Ten ships of the class were ordered in total, with the first agreed on 25 June. Pandora was the ninth ship to be ordered, such occurring on 11 February 1778.
Contracted out to Adams & Barnard of Grove Street, Deptford Dockyard, she was laid down on 2 March and launched on 17 May 1779 with the following dimensions: 114 feet 7 inches (34.9 m) along the upper deck and 94 feet 9+1⁄2 inches (28.9 m) along the keel, with a beam of 32 feet 3 inches (9.8 m) and a depth in the hold of 10 feet 3 inches (3.1 m). The ship measured 52438⁄94 tons burthen, having cost £5,716 3s. 10d. to build. The fitting out process was completed at Deptford on 3 July, costing a further £5,909 13s. 10d.
Pandora had a crew complement of 160. She was armed with twenty-two 9-pounder long guns on her upper deck, which armament was supplemented with two 6-pounder long guns on the forecastle.
Pandora's first service was in the Channel during the 1779 threatened invasion by the combined fleets of France and Spain. The ship was deployed in North American waters during the American War Of Independence and saw service as a convoy escort between England and Quebec. On 18 July 1780, while under the command of Captain Anthony Parry, Pandora and Danae captured the American privateer Jack. Then on 2 September, the two British vessels captured the American privateer Terrible. On 14 January Pandora captured the brig Janie. Then on 11 March she captured the ship Mercury. Two days later Pandora and HMS Bellisarius were off the Virginia Capes when they captured the sloop Louis, which had been sailing to Virginia with a cargo of cider and onions. Under Captain John Inglis Pandora captured more merchant vessels. The first was the brig Lively on 24 May 1782. More followed: the ship Mercury and the sloops Port Royal and Superb (22 November 1782), the brig Nestor (3 February 1783), and the ship Financier (29 March). At the end of the American war the Admiralty placed Pandora in ordinary (mothballed) in 1783 at Chatham for seven years.
Pandora was ordered to be brought back into service on 30 June 1790 when war between Great Britain and Spain seemed likely due to the Nootka Crisis. However, in early August 1790, five months after learning of the mutiny on HMS Bounty, the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch the ship to recover the Bounty, capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. Pandora was refitted with four 18-pounder carronades and her nine-pounder guns were reduced to twenty in number.
Pandora sailed from the Solent on 7 November 1790, commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and manned by a crew of 134 men. With his crew was Thomas Hayward, who had been on the Bounty at the time of the mutiny, and left with Bligh in the open boat. At Tahiti they were also assisted by John Brown, who had been left on the island by a British merchant ship, The Mercury.
Unknown to Edwards, twelve of the mutineers, together with four crew who had stayed loyal to William Bligh, had by then already elected to return to Tahiti, after a failed attempt to establish a colony (Fort St George) under Fletcher Christian's leadership on Tubuai, one of the Austral Islands. The disaffected men were living in Tahiti as 'beachcombers', many of them having fathered children with local women. Fletcher Christian's group of mutineers and their Polynesian followers had sailed off and eventually established their settlement on the then uncharted Pitcairn Island. By the time of Pandora's arrival, fourteen of the former Bounty men remained on Tahiti, Charles Churchill having been murdered in a quarrel with Matthew Thompson, who was in turn killed by Polynesians, who considered Churchill their king.
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