Today, 31st May, marks the anniversary of the capture of HMS Diamond Rock by a French / Spanish squadron led by Captain Cosmao-Kerjulien in 1805. HMS Diamond Rock is an island formed by a volcanic plug which occupies a strategic position between Martinique and St Lucia, which had been audaciously fortified by Commodore Sir Samuel Hood in early ( Read more... )

Tonight marks the anniversary of the Droits de L’Homme engagement when Captains Sir Edward Pellew and Robert Carthew Reynolds in the frigates Indefatigable and Amazon took on Commodore Raymond de Lacrosse’s 74 gun ship of the line, Les Droits de L’Homme, and ran her into the surf off Hodierne Bay.


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Last week Bonhams auctioned a painting of the iconic engagement between the Indefatigable, Amazon and Droits de L'Homme by marine painter John Lynn. I had never come across Lynn, who the catalogue describes as...

"...a painter of shipping and coastal scenes. He exhibited at the British Institution from 1828 to– 1838 and he also exhibited at the ( Read more... )

Better late than never! As promised some time ago, here's a copy of the presentation that nodbear and I gave at the New Researchers in Maritime History Conference.


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I’m just back from a perfectly wonderful weekend with nodbear spent pouring over huge piles of Indefatigable logs and musters and heaps of letters from sundry captains, middies and their mums! Not only that, but on Saturday evening we had a celebratory dinner for nodbear and esmerelda_t’s joint birthday, an event of unparalleled fangirly extravagance, the highlight of ( Read more... )

When nodbear and I started researching the life of George Cadogan our first port of call was the print archives at google books and archive.org where we came across an out of print title by Robert Pearman called The Cadogan’s At War 1783 - 1864: The Third Earl Cadogan His Family. Pearman’s book is fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. While it ( Read more... )

As part of on going research into the famous naval engagement between the frigates Indefatigable, Captain Pellew, and Amazon, Captain Reynolds and the French 74 gun ship of the line the Droits de L’Homme, Captain de Lacrosse, Nodbear and I have been following up the lives and careers of some of the officers and men who lived through this extraordinary ( Read more... )

Tonight marks the anniversary of one of the most famous frigate engagements of the French Revolutionary Wars when the frigates Indefatigable, captain Sir Edward Pellew and Amazon, captain Robert Carthew Reynolds, took on the French 74 gun ship of the line the Droits de L'Homme, captain Raymond de Lacrosse on the 13th of January 1797. Many accounts ( Read more... )

Some of you already know that nodbear and I have an ongoing project researching the lives of the 1797 crew of HMS Indefatigable at the time the ship, along with the Amazon, engaged the French 74, the Droits de L'Homme in one of the most famous frigate actions of the French Revolutionary Wars. Eventually we hope to write the story of this engagement from ( Read more... )