Escape of the 'Royal George'
British Warship Intercepted by American Vessels During War of 1812
Jul 19, 2008
The wind pressed against the huge, billowing sails as HMS Royal George was on a regular mission. It and others transported soldier and cargo loads of supplies to important posts in the Great Lakes. The Royal George was near False Duck Islands in the Bay of Quinte on November 9, 1812, when suddenly the chase was on. The Oneida and a fleet of six more American vessels pursued the ship, determined to capture the largest British warship in the lakes. It would have been another strike against British imperialism.
Cannons Blazing
In his home waters, Hugh Earle, Commander of the Royal George, hastily sailed his ship between the small False Duck Islands in the Bay of Quinte, escaping capture by navigating into safe harbour at Kingston. Commodore Isaac Chauncey, commander of the US Naval Forces in the Great Lakes, was not giving up. He and his fleet followed the Royal George, arriving at the eastern Lake Ontario port the next day. At 3 p.m. on November 10th, the American gunships Julia, Pert, Growler and Conquest opened the attack, cannons blazing on the solid batteries of Kingston to make way for the Oneida to enter the encounter, said Theodore Roosevelt in The Naval War of 1812. The Hamilton and the Tompkins arrived after the battle was underway. The skirmish lasted nearly two hours.
Though the British troops in Kingston returned fire at the invaders, aboard the Oneida, Commodore Chauncey was able to sail in close. The vessel fired a blast at the Royal George, “compelling her opponent, though of double her force, to cut her cables, run in, and tie herself to a wharf… here she was under the protection of a large body of troops, and the Americans could not board her in face of the land-forces.”
Abandoned the Attack
With the coming of dusk, the US ships abandoned the attack, sailing against headwinds into the nearby channel. During the battle, one American ship commander was killed and several sailors were wounded, according to the Historical Association of South Jefferson.
The largest of Great Lakes warships of the day, HMS Royal George was built at the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard in eastern Ontario and was launched in July of 1809. Originally under the auspices of the Provincial Marine, the 22-gun wooden sloop was transferred to the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. In 1814, the Royal George was renamed the Niagara. The ship was sold in 1837.
First Significant Naval Action
The interception of the Royal George and attack at the Kingston harbour was “the first significant naval action on the Great Lakes during the war of 1812,” notes a plaque at Finkle’s Point Park, west of Kingston, Ontario. The provincial plaque commemorates the area in which the British warship was first spotted by the US Naval Commodore.
Source:
The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt IV, published by Kessinger Publishing 2004.
 |
