Privateer and English Merchantman "Dragon": Lost on the South Devon Coast
Year: 2014 Language: english Author: Steve Clarkson Genre: History Format: PDF Quality: eBook Pages count: 49 Description: The “Dragon” is a ship of which little has been documented in terms of its history and wrecking. She was a small armed merchantman and “Privateer” of 196 Tons. A privateer or "corsair" was a private person or ship authorised by a government by “letters of marque” to attack foreign vessels during wartime. In this case, the war was the “Seven Year war” which started in 1756. Her role at the time of sinking would appear to be as a merchantman taking out dry goods from London to Jamaica and returning with a cargo of sugar, Rum and wood. This report is a brief history of the ship and how she came to be wrecked on the South Devon coast. The wreck site is very rarely exposed and most of the time remains metres beneath the sand. The winter storms of 2013 again exposed the site allowing us to document what is left, including her cannons. Only four people are known to have dived the site prior to us and that was only on two occasions that the site was exposed in the early nineties. The report not only documents what remains of the wreck and details of the site but also the maritime history at the time. Some of the passengers that drowned during the wrecking lived in Jamaica and are buried in a local churchyard so we have included details of what was happening in Jamaica in the 1750’s. Additional info: Dragon Archaeological survey report.
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Privateer and English Merchantman "Dragon": Lost on the South Devon Coast
Language: english
Author: Steve Clarkson
Genre: History
Format: PDF
Quality: eBook
Pages count: 49
Description: The “Dragon” is a ship of which little has been documented in terms of its history and wrecking. She was a small armed merchantman and “Privateer” of 196 Tons. A privateer or "corsair" was a private person or ship authorised by a government by “letters of marque” to attack foreign vessels during wartime. In this case, the war was the “Seven Year war” which started in 1756.
Her role at the time of sinking would appear to be as a merchantman taking out dry goods from London to Jamaica and returning with a cargo of sugar, Rum and wood. This report is a brief history of the ship and how she came to be wrecked on the South Devon coast. The wreck site is very rarely exposed and most of the time remains metres beneath the sand. The winter storms of 2013 again exposed the site allowing us to document what is left, including her cannons. Only four people are known to have dived the site prior to us and that was only on two occasions that the site was exposed in the early nineties.
The report not only documents what remains of the wreck and details of the site but also the maritime history at the time. Some of the passengers that drowned during the wrecking lived in Jamaica and are buried in a local churchyard so we have included details of what was happening in Jamaica in the 1750’s.
Additional info: Dragon Archaeological survey report.
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Dragon Wreck.pdf
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