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American Prizes November 1776 |
Name of Vessel:
Britannia [Britania]
Master of Vessel:
Benjamin Francis Hughes
Rig of Vessel:
Brig
Date of Capture:
15 November 1776
Place of Capture:
[Off Sandy Hook, New Jersey]
Captor:
Massachusetts Privateer Schooner Joseph
Home Port:
Liverpool, England
From What Port:
Jamaica, British West Indies
To What Port:
Liverpool, England
Cargo:
Ivory
Tonnage:
70
Battery:
Crew:
3 [prize crew]
Owners:
Benjamin Francis Hughes of Liverpool, England
Prize master:
Prize crew:
Ordered Into:
[Bedford in Dartmouth], Massachusetts
Into What Port:
[Bedford in Dartmouth], Massachusetts
Date Arrived:
Date Tried:
17 January 1777
Date Sold:
Action:
No
Recaptured:
No
Comments: The 70-ton brig Britannia [Britania] (Benjamin Francis Hughes, master and owner), based in Liverpool, England, was bound there from Jamaica in the British West Indies, ballast but with one ton of ivory aboard, which she brought from Guinea on the African coast. Britannia sailed from Jamaica on 6 September 1776. On 21 October 1776 Britannia feel in with the Pennsylvania Privateer Sloops Congress (Commander George McAroy) and Chance (Commander John Adams)which easily captured the brig. A prize crew of twelve men was put aboard and she was ordered in to Philadelphia.
Britannia was not to get into Philadelphia. On 1 November 1776, while sixty-three miles southeast of Cape Henlopen, she was run down and captured (at 1300) by HM Frigate Orpheus (Captain Charles Hudson). He removed the prisoners and sent a midshipman (petty officer) and two men to her as a prize crew. The prize was ordered into New York, New York.
En route to New York the Britannia encountered the Massachusetts Privateer Sloop Joseph (Commander Thomas West). Joseph easily recaptured the brig and brought her into a port on the south of Massachusetts, probably Bedford in Dartmouth. She was libeled on 2 January 1777 and tried on 17 January.
The midshipman commanding the prize crew was detained as a prisoner in Rhode Island until around April 1776, when he was presumably exchanged.
[NDAR, VII, 12 and note, 317-318 and 318 note (dated, incorrectly, to 24 October 1776 here), 375 and note, 943; The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser [Boston], January 2, 1777]
| Posted 10 August 2011 |
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