On This Day 25 November

[Coog]

On 25 November 1826 the Greek frigate Hellas arrives in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy.

In 1825, during the latter part of the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire, representatives of the Greek government in London negotiated with an American shipyard in New York for the construction of two frigates to be named Hope and Liberator. Ultimately, the Greek government defaulted and one of the ships, Liberator, and it was sold and the proceeds were used to pay for the other ship to be delivered to Greece.

The Hope sailed from New York during the first days of October 1826, with the crew being mostly adventurers. An agent of the Greek government, K. A. Kontostavlos, was also on board.

The voyage was raucous as the crew attempted to murder both the Captain and the Greek government agent in a scheme to sell the vessel in Colombia. The crew failed in their mutiny, and the ship was delivered to Nafplion about 25 November 1826. The crew tried a second time to sell the vessel, this time to Ibrahim Pasha, who at the head of an Ottoman-Egyptian force had invaded the Peloponnese. This time, Admiral Andreas Miaoulis and a force of 30 local mariners secured the vessel and dispatched the raucous delivery crew.

After her arrival in Nafplion, three Admirals (Miaoulis from Hydra, Nikolis Apostolis from Psara and Androutsos from Spetses) took official delivery of the frigate and brought her to the island of Aegina, which had recently become capital of Greece.

The frigate, renamed Hellas, became the flagship of the Greek Navy, as she was the most powerful ship in the navy. Under the command of various capitains (among them Cochrane, Antonios Miaoulis and Konstantinos Kanaris), the frigate took part in various successful, but insignificant, naval battles in both the Aegean and Ionian Seas.

On 27 July 1831, Admiral Miaoulis, who in the meantime had joined the English Party that was opposed to Governor Kapodistrias' Russian Party seized on the island of Poros the navy then under the command of Kanaris. When the government in Nafplion asked Miaoulis to deliver the Greek fleet to the Russian Admiral Pyotr Ivanovich Ricord, Miaoulis refused to obey that order and threatened to scuttle the entire fleet under his command in the event of hostile movement by Ricord. When Ricord attacked Poros Island the 13 August, Miaoulis carried out his threats, burning the small fleet. In addition to Hellas, the other scuttled ships were the corvettes Hydra and Spetsai.

[David Manley]

1793 - HMS Penelope (32), Captain Bartholomew Samuel Rowley, in company with the Iphigenia (32) , Captain Patrick Sinclair, cruising in the Bight of Leogane, off the island of St. Domingo, engaged and captured the French 36-gun frigate Inconstante. The prize was purchased for the navy and registered under her French name.