Talk:HMS Babet (1794)

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I don't know how relevant this might be but I found today a gravestone recording three individuals, a father and his son and daughter. The son was William Bellamy, a leuitenant in the Royal Navy serving on Le Babet "when she foundered in the West Indies", to quote the stone. Strangely, the gravestone records March 1801 as the date the ship sank, rather tahn November, as suggested in the article. I'm going back to the churchyard tomorrow so I can double check, but I'm sure I recorded the information correctly. Mygrum (talk) 21:04, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Babet lost in 1800 but reported as lost in 1801
The Babet with General Knox sailed in September 1800 - see for example page 3 of the Exeter Flying Post 25 September 1800 https://search.findmypast.com.au/bna/viewarticle?id=bl%2f0000103%2f18000925%2f007&stringtohighlight=knox%20babet Based on letters such as at https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028002743/cu31924028002743_djvu.txt "About this time [1801] we got the melancholy account of the loss of the Babet, the ship in which our dear John^ (General Knox) was gone out as Governor and Commander in Chief to Jamaica. Many, many tears did I shed for him, I loved him as a brother, and never, I believe, was there a man so deserving of the regard and regret every- one expressed for him. We long had hopes that the ship was not lost, as it was not seen to go down, but years have elapsed since, therefore no hope can be indiJged, though I am sometimes fool enough to feel some, in spite of my almost conviction that it is impossible they ever should be realised."

and https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.74800/2015.74800.Secret-Memoirs-Of-The-Courts-Of-Europe-Letters-Written-At-The-End-Of-The-Eighteenth-Century-Vol-Ii_djvu.txt "March 28th. [1801]

Every day takes away part of our hopes ; there are letters by the Jamaica mail, and ac- counts have been received from Honduras and other parts of the island. They have seen nothing of the unfortunate Babet, so that little opening remains but the chances of capture, which I am afraid would have been known before now. The Knox family and Colonel Barry give it up as a lost case. I write illegibly, for my eyes are dim, and every letter appears double. "

I am reasonably certain that some time was spent before declaring the Babet lost.

In February 1801 there were newspaper reports of serious concerns for General Knox who was aboard the Babet. eg Reading Mercury 9 February 1801 page 2 https://search.findmypast.com.au/bna/viewarticle?id=bl%2f0000367%2f18010209%2f003&stringtohighlight=general%20knox

The will of Captain Jemmett Mainwaring was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 1 July 1801, a date not comaptible with the loss of the Babet in October 1801.Matilda talk 10:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)