HMS St. Lawrence (1814)
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HMS St. Lawrence was a 112 gun British warship that served on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. The St. Lawrence was likely the only Royal Navy ship of the line ever to be launched and operated entirely in fresh water.
The St. Lawrence had her keel laid on April 12, 1814, and was launched on September 10, 1814. British naval commodore James Yeo commissioned her as his flagship (Captain Frederick Hickey) in the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard in Kingston, Upper Canada. Master shipbuilder John Dennis and nearly 200 shipwrights built her in under 10 months [however cf. both refs 1 and 2 below which state that she was designed and built by master shipwright William Bell]. The St. Lawrence's 112 guns on three flush decks qualified her as a first rate, larger than Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar nine years earlier. She measured 2,305 tons burthen, and she carried a crew of 700. In way of armaments she carried thirty-two 32pdr long guns and two 68pdr carronades on the upper deck, thirty-six 24pdr long guns on the middle deck and twenty-eight 32pdr long guns, four 24pdr long guns, and two 68pdr carronades on the lower deck. She had a gundeck of 191' 2" and breadth of 52' 6".
At the time, Lake Ontario was effectively landlocked for any but the smallest vessels, due to shallow water and rapids on the St. Lawrence River downstream and Niagara Falls upstream. As a result, warships operating on Lake Ontario had to be built onsite, either in Kingston or in the American naval dockyards at Sackets Harbor, or converted from merchant ships already operating in the lake.
Control of the lake — the most important supply route for military operations to the west — had passed back and forth between the Americans and the British over the course of the war. The construction of a first rate ship of the line, in a campaign that had been dominated by sloops and frigates, gave the British uncontested control of the lake during the final months of the war. HMS St. Lawrence never saw action, because her presence on the lake deterred the U.S. fleet from setting sail.
After the war in 1815, the ship was decommissioned and her hull was used as a storage facility by Morton's Brewery in Kingston. In January 1832, the hull was sold there to Robert Drummond for £25. Later, it was sunk in 30 feet (10 meters) of water close to shore, and is now a popular diving attraction.
[edit] References
1. "The Sail & Steam Navy List", Lyon & Winfield, London, 2004 ISBN 1-86176-032-9
2. "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817", Winfield, London, 2005 ISBN 1-86176-246-1
3. "The Sailing Navy List", Lyon, London, 1997 ISBN 0-85177-864-X
(Note that there are certain discrepancies among these sources)
