HMS Briseis (1808)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Briseis.
Career
Name: HMS Briseis
Builder: John King, Upnor
Launched: 19 May 1808
Fate: Wrecked 5 November 1816
General characteristics
Class and type:Cherokee-class brig-sloop
Tons burthen:239 bm
Length:90 ft 3 in (27.51 m)
Beam:24 ft 7 in (7.49 m)
Draught:11 ft 0 in (3.35 m)
Propulsion:Sails
Sail plan:Brig
Complement:75 men and boys
Armament:8 x 18-pounder carronades
2 x 6-pounder guns

HMS Briseis was a 10-gun Cherokee-class Royal Navy brig launched in 1808 at Upnor, on the River Medway.

James Clark Ross joined the Navy in April 1812 and served in this ship under the command of his uncle, John Ross.[1]

She was wrecked off Cuba on 5 November 1816.

In fiction

Briseis appears as part of Jack Aubrey's squadron in Patrick O'Brian's The Hundred Days, where she is described as "the little Briseis, one of that numerous class called coffin-brigs" (however, the real Briseis did not serve in the Mediterranean, where the novel's action is set).

References

  1. Clements Robert Markham (23 August 2012). The Royal Geographical Society and the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76: A Report. Cambridge University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-108-04971-9.

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