HMS Liverpool (1814)
HMS Liverpool was yet another revised Endymion Class Frigate, reclassified as a fourth rate, built by Wigram, Wells, & Green at Blackwall. Ordered on the 26th of December 1812, laid down in the May of 1813, she was launched on the 21st of February, 1814, and completed at Woolwich on the 30th of June. Like her siblings she was also built of pitch pine to speed up the construction at the expense of durability.
Ship's plan for Liverpool
History GREAT BRITAIN Name: HMS Liverpool Builder: Wigram, Wells & Green, Blackwall Yard Laid down: May 1813 Launched: 21 February 1814 Commissioned: May 1814 Fate: Sold at Bombay, 1822 General cacteristics.
Class and type: Revised Endymion Class Frigate, reclassified as a fourth rate. Tons burthen: 124686⁄94 (bm) Length: 159 ft 2in (48.5 m) (overall) Beam: 42 ft 11⁄2 (12.5 m) Draught: 9ft 7in x 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m) Sail plan: Full rigged ship Armament:
- Upperdeck: 28 x 24 pdr guns
- QD: 16 x 32 pdr Carronades
- Fc: 2 x 9 pdr guns + 4 x 32 pdr Carronades
Service.
Liverpool was commissioned under Captain Arthur Farquhar in the May of 1814. Her first commission was very brief, though. She escorted convoys to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec. She then served at the Cape of Good Hope before, on the 21st of October 1815, capturing the French Schooner Circonstance carrying 67 slaves. During her return voyage to England, on the5th of Match 1816, she was driven ashore and severely damaged off Dover, being later refloated and taken in to Deptford to be paid off on the 3rd of April. In 1817 she was laid up at Deptford and then underwent a small repair at Chatham between the October of that year and the June of 1818 at a cost of £5,697.
In the February of that year, Liverpool had been Recommissioned under Captain Francis Augustus Collier, who sailed her to the East Indies via Mauritus and Ceylon. Whilst based at Port Louis she took four slave vessels and on the 29th of July,1819, also captured the Deux Amis followed by the Constance on the 17th of August and Jenny on the 24th. In all cases a bounty was paid for the freed slaves.
The Persian Gulf campaign 1819.
Later in the year Rear Admiral King appointed Collier to command the naval portion of a combined forces punitive expedition against the Al Qasimi at Ras Al Khaimah in the Persian Gulf. The naval force comprised the Liverpool, Curlew and Eden, plus a number of gun and mortar boats. The Bombay Marine of the HEIC contributed six armed vessels to the expedition. These were the 16 gun Teignmouth under the command of Captain Hall who was the senior captain, the 16 gun Benares, the two 14 gunned ships Aurora, and Nautilus, and the12 gunned ships Ariel, and Vestal. Later two frigates and a contingent of 600 men provided by the Sultan of Muscat joined the expedition. The British troops, conveyed in transports, were under the command of Major General Sir William Keir and comprised some 3,000 men from the 47th and 65th Regiments of Foot, the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Native Infantry, the flank companies of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Native Infantry and of the Marine Battalion, and half a company of Pioneers. In all, there were 1,645 European and 1,424 Indian sepoys and marines taking part in the expedition.
The fleet anchored off Ras Al Khaimah on the 2nd of December, landing troops two miles south of the town on the 3rd. Collier placed Captain Walpole of Curlew in charge of the gun boats with an armed Pinnace to protect the landing, which was, however, unopposed. The bombardment of the town was commenced on the 6th of December by disembarked batteries of 12 pounder guns and mortars, as well as from seaborne ordinance. On the following day, two 24 pounder cannon from Liverpool were added to reinforce the land batteries. When the troops stormed the town on the 9th they discovered that the inhabitants had fled. The result of the siege, cost the British was that they suffered 5 dead and 52 wounded. The Al Qasimi perportedly had lost 1,000 in dead alone.
Following the capture of Ras Al Khaimah, three ships were dispatched to blockade the nearby harbour at Rams, further to the North, where they landed a force on the 18th of December, which fought its way inland through a series of date plantations and on the 19th surrounded the hilltop fort of Dhaya. There, under continuous fire,398 men and 400 women and children resisted for three days, without water or effective cover from the sun, until the two 24 pounder cannon from Liverpool were once again pressed into service. After enduring two hours of bombardment from the heavy guns, which succeeded in breaching the fort's walls, the last of the Al Qasimi surrendered at 10.30 on the morning of the 22nd.
The expeditionary force then demolished the town of Ras Al Khaimah and then established a garrison of 800 sepoys supported by artillery, before moving on toJazirat Al Hamra, which they discovered to be deserted. They then destroyed the fortifications and larger vessels at Umm Al Qawain, Ajman, Fasht, Sharjah, Abu Hail, and Dubai. 10 vessels which had taken shelter in Bahrain were also destroyed. During this action The Royal Navy suffered no casualties.
The result of the campaign was the signing of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, between the British and the Sheikhs of what was formerly known as the Pirate Coast and was destined to become the Trucial Coast, known today as the United Arab Emirates.
Fate.
Liverpool continued serving in the East Indies, and also undertook a voyage to China, still under Collier until he transferred to the Seringapatam. In the August of 1821 Liverpool returned to the Persian Gulf where several of her crew succumbed to heat stroke. In the January of 1822 she was paid off at Bombay, and on the 16th of April she was sold for £3,780, the buyer apparently being a Persian Prince who wished to employ her in undertaking the suppression of piracy around the Persian Gulf.
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