Betsey (1768 ship)

Betsey was a Guineaman (slave ship), launched at Liverpool in 1768. She made several voyages transporting slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean until 1777 when the British Royal Navy purchased her at Antigua, named her HMS Comet, and armed her as a sloop-of-war. She sailed to England in 1778, where the Navy sold her.

For other ships with the same name, see Betsey (ship) and HMS Comet.

Great Britain
Name: Betsey
Owner: William James & Co. (1768-1777)[1]
Builder: Liverpool[2]
Launched: 1768
Fate: Sold 1777
Great Britain
Name: HMS Comet
Acquired: 1777 by purchase
Fate: Sold 15 September 1778
General characteristics [3]
Tons burthen: 200,[2] or 250 bm
Length: 87 ft (27 m) (overall); 70 ft (21 m) (keel)
Beam: 25 ft (7.6 m)
Depth of hold: 10 ft (3.0 m)
Sail plan: Sloop
Complement: 100
Armament: 10[4] or 14[5] x 4-pounder guns

Slaver

Between 1768 and 1777 Betsey made some seven or eight voyages transporting slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean.[1]

Year Master
1768 Samuel Conway Antigua
1770 Samuel Conway Antigua
1770 Samuel Conway
Parkinson		 Antigua
1772 Samuel Conway
William Stevenson		 Jamaica
1772 Samuel Conway St Kitts
1774 John Washington Jamaica.
1775 Jere Limeburner Jamaica
1777 John Simmons Dominica

The 1776 issue of Lloyd's Register is the first issue available online that lists Betsey. It shows her trade as Liverpool-Africa, and her master changing from Limeburner to Simmons. It also records that in 1774 she had damages repaired.[2]

Betsey arrived in Dominica in 1776 from New Calabar. She had embarked 336 slaves and disembarked 272, for a 19% mortality rate.[6]

HMS Comet

Vice-admiral James Young purchased the Guineaman Betsey at Antigua for £1500, and renamed her Comet. On 30 May 1777 he appointed Lieutenant William Swinney (or Swiney), First Lieutenant of Portland, to command Comet.[5]

On 19 March 1778 Lieutenant William Peacock, First Lieutenant of Portland, replaced Swinney, who transferred to Cygnet to replace her previous commander, Lieutenant Robert Stratford, who had died.[7]

In April Young sent Shark and Comet back to England as escorts to a convoy that also included Yarmouth, which Young was sending back for repairs following her engagement with the American privateer Randolph.[8]

Fate

Comet was paid off in August 1778.[9] The navy sold Comet on 15 September 1778.[4]

Citations and references

Citations

  1. Thomas Cozens: Liverpool Slave Ship Voyages Database
  2. Lloyd's Register (1776), Seq. №B133.
  3. Morgan (1986), p. 102n.
  4. Colledge & Warlow (2006), p. 86.
  5. Morgan (1986), p. 101.
  6. Campbell (2007), p.22.
  7. Crawford et al. 2005, p. 720.
  8. Crawford et al. (2013), p. 58.
  9. "NMM, vessel ID 382607" (PDF). Warship Histories, vol xii. National Maritime Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 August 2011. Retrieved 30 July 2011.

References

This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.

gollark: Taking one box is also rational because if you do you get 1 million and if you don't you get 10000.
gollark: Predicting which box I'll take effectively means running a high accuracy simulation of me. Thus, since I may be being simulated when I choose, my choice does affect the (eventual) box content, thus take one box.
gollark: No. I've thought about this.
gollark: Oh, lyric, heard of Newcomb's paradox?
gollark: In that case it's essentially "pick the both cooperating reward or pick the both defecting reward".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.