Qualla: HMS St George (1785)

HMS St George (1785): Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McKarri 16:03, 31. Mär. 2009 (CEST), CC BY-SA 3.0. She took eleven years to build and came apart in a day. Ordered in July 1774 and not launched until October 1785, HMS St George was a 98-gun second rate of the Duke class — 1,931 tons, 177 feet on the gundeck, 850 men when fully manned. Horatio Nelson flew his flag in her. She was at Copenhagen and in the Mediterranean and she survived both. What finished her was a jury-rigged rudder, a northwest gale and a sandbar 500 metres off a Danish beach, in full view of people on the beach who could do nothing at all.

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Image: McKarri 16:03, 31. Mär. 2009 (CEST) | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS St George (1785): Prizes and Flags

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit An-d, CC BY-SA 4.0. Her first war years were unusually profitable. In 1793 Rear-Admiral John Gell hoisted his flag in her and, commanding the Mediterranean division, took the Spanish-registered prize St Jago, whose cargo was valued at £935,000 — on the order of a hundred million pounds today. St Geo...

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Image: An-d | CC BY-SA 4.0

HMS St George (1785): The Last Convoy of the Year

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 and the seizure of the Danish fleet, Britain and Denmark-Norway fought the Gunboat War, and every British merchantman in the Baltic needed escorting past privateers. On 1 November 1811 the last homeward convoy of the season — 12...

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Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0

HMS St George (1785): Saumarez Was Right

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit McKarri, CC BY-SA 3.0. The convoy reached Vinga, off Gothenburg, on 1 December; St George limped in the next day for further repairs. Saumarez had grave misgivings about a crippled second rate attempting the North Sea in midwinter. Reynolds and Captain Daniel Oliver Guion insisted she could make the cr...

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Image: McKarri | CC BY-SA 3.0

HMS St George (1785): Christmas Eve, Six in the Morning

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before dawn on 24 December they tried to turn her downwind. The jib blew out. The topsail would not set, and tarpaulins spread in the netting gave no steerage. The anchor went down, the cable fouled the temporary rudder and broke it, and after that St George went where the sea se...

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Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0

HMS St George (1785): What Came Ashore

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas Buttersworth, Public domain. On Christmas Day about ten men reached a raft; four survived the landing, and eight more came in clinging to drifting timber. By the 26th there was no movement on the wreck. Of roughly 738 aboard, the interrogation records suggest twelve lived; some sources say as few as seven. R...

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Image: Thomas Buttersworth | Public domain