| 1813-1814 |
In
1813 a 20 (26?) gun sloop HMS Conway
was laid down at Frindesbury
opposite Rochester on the Medway. She was designed by Sir William Ruls
and variously classified as a sixth rate, 'ship sloop', or a 'brig
sloop'. Her length was 108.4 feet and she displaced 444 (or 451)
tons BOM. She had a crew of
150. |
| 1814 Mar 10 |
Launched as the lead ship of her her 10 vessel class.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway-class_post_ship
|
1814 Oct 1
|
Commissioned with Captain John Tancock as her first Captain. |
1814-1816
|
For part of this period one of her Midshipmen was John Hood Wolesley and he kept a log of his time here
|
1815 Jun 26
| Captured the French vessel Panther in transit from Martinique to Dunkirk and brought her into Plymouth.
|
1816 Sep 22
| Tancock left to command Iphigenia and was replaced by Captain John Reynolds.
|
1816 Dec 16
| Reynolds was promoted and replaced by Captain William Hill.
|
1817 Jul 4
|
Hill
was replaced by Captain Edward Barnard and moved to the East Indies
Station and employed protecting British trade in the Persian Gulf and
in suppressing the slave trade around Isle de France. |
1819 Oct 21
| Off the Cape of Good Hope, a midshipman and four sailors drowned when their boat was swamped while coming alongside Feniscowles,
which had been driven ashore and wrecked at Green Point. All on board
were rescued. A later report stated that the second master and two men
from Conway had drowned in going to Fenniscowles's assistance.
|
1819 Dec (late)
| Arrived at Plymouth
|
1819
|
Samuel Thornton Junior served as acting Lt for six months.
William Arthur, aged 21, of Surrey, Master's Mate of H.M.S. Conway died 10/22/1819 and was buried at the Cape of Good Hope.
|
1820 Jan 20
| Paid off.
|
1820 Mar - Jul
| Underwent refitting for sea duty.
|
1820 May
|
Recommissioned under Captain Basil Hall FRS. |
1820 Aug 10 or 20
| Left for the South American station for the
purpose of exploring the South Shetlands. Stopped at Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro and the River Plate.
Produced the first chart of
Hughes Bay. Her log book for the years 1820 - 21 is held by the
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service http://www2.hmc.gov.uk/NRA/searches/SIdocs.asp?SIR=43097 |
1820 Dec 25
| Arrived at Valparaiso having been ordered there by Commodore Sir Thomas Hardy, CinC of the South America Station.
|
1821
| Samuel Thornton Junior served as Acting Lt for six months
|
1821 Jan 22
| Relieved in Valparaiso by the Owen Glendower and left for Callao.
|
1821 Jan 31
| Arrived
Callao. The Chile and Peruvian wars of independence were in full swing
with Chile's naval forces led by the British Admiral Lord Cochrane.
|
1821 Feb 18
| Captain Hall left her in Callao to visit the Spanish Viceroy in Lima. In Hall's absence, when two officers from Conway
came on shore at Callao, the Peruvian authorities arrested them on the
suspicion that the officers were spies for the Admiral
Cochrane. Hall eventually succeeded in getting them released. |
1821 Feb 23
| Sailed from Callao. |
1821 Feb 24
| Hall met Cochrane on Cochrane's flagship the San Martin. |
1821 Feb 28
| Sailed for Valparaiso. |
1821 Mar 18
| Arrived
Valparaiso and sailed on to Santiago for Hall to meet with Hardy, but
then returned to Valparaiso where she remained between 5 April and 26
May. While she was there, her officers made surveys. They also observed
a comet that remained in sight between 1 April and 8 June; the data
they gathered helped Dr. Brinkley, of Dublin, compute its orbit and
publish the results in 1822. |
1821 May 26
| Sailed along the coast, stopping at Arica on 7 June and Ylo. |
1821 Jun 13 to 20
| At
Mollendo where Hall discovered that the locals used rafts made of
inflated seal skins to cross a surf that would have overturned Conway's boats. |
1821 Jun 24
| Returned to Callao and on 25 June Hall met with General San Martin, who was aboard a schooner in the roads. |
1821 Jun - Oct
|
Visited
Concepción and Arauco, Chile. Arauco had been the base for the pirate
Vicente Benavides, who had recently fled, taking with him American and
British sailors that he had captured when he captured their vessels.
|
1821 Nov 5 and 6
| Moored in Callao Roads, Chille during the capture by Admiral Cochrane of the Spanish Esmeralda during Chile's fight for independence. At some date returned to Valparaiso.
Capture of the Esmeralda 01
Capture of the Esmeralda 02
Capture of the Esmeralda 03
|
1821 Nov 14
| Left
Valparaiso to visit ports between there and Lima to assist and protect
British interests. She stopped at Coquimbo and Copiapó where one of her
midshipmen surveyed the harbour.
|
1821 Dec 9 to 17
| At Callao.
|
1821 Dec 18
| Departed
Callao and sailed 4,600 miles from Mocha Island north to San Blas, then
stopped at Payta, Guayaquil, the Galápagos Islands, Panama City, and
Acapulco.
|
1822 Mar 28
| Arrived San Blas.
|
1822 May 6
| The
merchants in San Blas received the authorization of the Mexican
Government, conveyed via the state capital of Guadalajara, to send
specie to England to pay for goods to be brought back to Mexico. Conway took on board more than half a million dollars.
|
1822 Jun 15
| Sailed for England, nearly 8,000 miles to Rio de Janeiro via Cape Horn.
|
1822 Sep 12
| Arrived Rio de Janeiro.
|
1823
| Arrived Chatham, unloaded her stash of specie and was paid off.
Captain Hall published the
result of his observations under the title of "Extracts from a Journal
written on the Coasts of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, in the years 1820,
1821, and 1822." This work, which afterwards constituted the second and
third volumes of "Constable’s Miscellany," contained not only a highly
interesting account of the people of these countries, and the events of
the war of South American independence, but a memoir on the navigation
of the South American station, a valuable collection of scientific
observations, and an article "On the Duties of Naval Commanders-in-chief
on the South American Station, before the appointment of Consuls.
Hall also published a letter on his experiments see here
|
1820s
|
George Birnie, Surgeon RN was her surgeon for part of this period see here
|
1825 Jan 27
| The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" first offered offered Conway, of 26 guns and 452 tons", lying at Chatham fro sale but her sale fell though. |
1825 Oct 13
|
She was sold to Mr. Edward Cohen for £2,210, renamed Toward Castle and became a merchant vessel. This enabled 'our' HMS Conway to adopt the name when she was laid down in 1828. |
1826
| Toward Castle
appeared in Lloyd's Register and the Register of Shipping. Both showed
her master as Jeffrey or Jeffrys, her owner as Smith, and her trade as
London–New South Wales. However, Lloyd's showed her build year as 1808
and the Register as 1810. In much later volumes Lloyd's gave the build
year as 1813. |
1826 Aug 17
| Toward Castle sailed for New South Wales.
|
1827
| The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser published the manifest of the "Cargo of the Ship Toward Castle,
Robert Jeffery, Master, from London and Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land,
to Sydney, New South Wales". The cargo included 300 sheep, rum, wine,
merchandise, four carronades, and much else besides.
|
1828
| From this time on she was engaged in whaling. Captain William Darby Brind sailed Toward Castle from
England in 1828, bound for New Zealand. She was reported to have been
at the Bay of Islands on 9 October, not yet having caught anything.
|
1829 Sep 25
| She was again at Bay of Islands, with 200 tons of whale oil.
|
1829 Nov
| At Tongatapu with 1650 barrels.
|
1831 Jul 14
| She returned to
England with 600 casks and 16 tanks of whale oil.
|
1831 Oct 11
| Captain
Brind sailed from England bound for New Zealand via the Cape of Good
Hope and Tonga. On 4 March 1833 she was at the Bay of Islands with 1500
barrels. She was reported at various times as being at Tonga or the
Bay.
|
1833 Mar 4
| At the Bay of Islands with 1500
barrels. She was reported at various times as being at Tonga or the
Bay.
|
1833 Nov 17
| At Oahu
|
1835 May
| Arrived England via St Helena with 2300 barrels of oil.
|
1835 Oct 6
| Captain Thomas Emmens (or Emmett, or Howarth, or Bennett), sailed from England on her third whaling voyage.
|
1837 Nov
| At Monterey, California
|
1838 Jan 7
| Toward Castle
struck a shoal about 50 miles north of Cedros Island 28°11′N115°13′W
off Baja California. The crew took to the boats. Captain Emmens, his
mate, and five men reached the mission at Todos los Santos, more than
500 miles away. From there they went overland some 50 miles to La Paz. Dorotea
carried them from there across the Gulf of California to Mazatlán.
Samuel Talbot, the United States Consul at Mazatlán, arranged for two
American crew members to be repatriated aboard the American schooner Boxer. Captain Emmens, his mate, and the other three crew members shipped aboard the English bark Vesper. As of 7 February there had been no news at Mazatlán of the fate of the remainder of Toward Castle's
30 (or 31) man crew. Talbot thought that they had been lost. Other
reports stated that nine men had survived, out of a crew of 31. Her
cargo of 1800 barrels of oil were lost. The cause of the wreck was that
the location of the island as laid out in her English charts was wrong
|
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