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The Indian Queen Captured 6 December 1776 |
The Indian Queen Captured
6 December 1776
The Indian Queen (M’Pherson) was owned in Dartmouth, England. She sailed from Lisbon on 6 December 1776 with a crew of twenty-four men and eleven passengers, bound for Leghorn, Italy. Fourteen hours out she fell in with an American privateer, armed with eighteen 10-pounders, twelve swivels, and manned with ninety men. The privateer cannot be further identified.
M’Pherson chose to fight despite the odds. After forty-five minutes he surrendered, his vessel’s rigging shattered, and seven dead and nine wounded in his crew. The Americans landed the prisoners within fifteen miles of Gibralter, having behaved with “great Humanity.”1
Summary Table
Vessel | Tons | Guns | Broadside | Men | Killed | % | Wounded | % | Total | % | [unknown] | — | 18 | 90 | 90 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Indian Queen | — | — | — | 35 | 7 | 20% | 9 | 26% | 16 | 46% |
Time: 45 minutes | ||||||||||
1 NDAR, “Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman at Florence in Italy, to his Friend in Birmingham, dated December 29, 1776,” VII, 814
| Posted 7 August 2011 |
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