User talk:Jackyd101/Mauritius campaign project

Hi - we for some time have been looking into the life and times of a certain Frazer Sinclair, country trader out of Calcutta between about 1800-1814. We were mainly interested in the Forbes, a ship he commanded in 1805/6. However, in 1809-10 he was master of the Emma of Mauritius fame. The Emma, ‘a very beautiful ship, constructed upon the model of a sloop of war, and said to be peculiarly adapted for offense and defence’, had ‘glided into her destined element, amidst the admiration and applauses of a numerous assemblage of spectators’(for this and the following unmarked quotations, Asiatic Annual Register […] for the year 1808 [1811] [henceforth, AAR NNNN [year of publication]: London, pg. 96] on November 25, 1808. She carried 440 tons, carpenter's measure, was named after Matthew Smith’s, her builder’s, daughter, and constructed on the Calcutta-side boatyards of the said gentleman. Sinclair and Smith had relations of some standing: Smith had built the Forbes, and assumedly decided to give Emma to Sinclair after the latter had lost the Farquhar, a small yet fast raider, earlier that year in the Hooghly. We remain uninformed of the Emma’s affairs except for her arrival at Bombay on November 14 of the next year (Bombay Courier, 1809-11-18); by March 1810 we find her, together with the country ship Troubridge, readied to take the newly appointed ‘staff and suite of his Excellence the Commander in chief’ of Madras Presidency from Calcutta to their station (Calcutta Telegraph, 1810-03-13). It would appear that at some time thence Emma was chartered by the Royal Navy as relief and transport for Rowley’s hard-pressed squadron off Isle de France, where she arrived, ‘armed on the emergency’ (AAR 1810-11 [1812]: 54) with the guns of the East-Indiaman Windham and in convoy with HMS Boadicea, in August 1810, only to find that they were ‘too late to afford the necessary succours’(Bombay Courier, 1810-12-15, quoting ‘Calcutta Intelligence’ from 1810-11-23) for the British ships meanwhile lost in the disastrous Battle of Grand Port. Emma was given patrol duties ‘off Rodriguez to warn any passing British vessels of the danger from the French squadron’ (http://cannonade.net/mauritius.php, last accessed 2015-09-14) that had recently arrived to reinforce the defence of the French Indian Ocean islands; later that year, she, together with HMS Hesper, surveyed the bay where the landing party destined to take Port Napoleon on December 2, 1810, was to be set ashore. ‘Intelligence from the Mauritius’ printed in the Prince of Wales Island Gazette of 1811-03-11 informs us that the last labour of ‘the armed ship Emma, Captain Sinclair’ in the campaign was to be 'fitted up for the reception of General De Caen [the French defender of Isle de France], and his suite […] to set sail on the 16th Dec.[,] General Abercrombie having positively refused to allow De Caen to remain longer on the island.' Sinclair, however successful throughout the campaign (still in 1828 the Emma is noted in the list for the ‘fourth and final distribution of the prize property’ made at Isle de France [London Gazette 1828: 1376]) apparently was not the man to, as was usual on a civilian ship turned man-o’-war, serve as mate under a navy officer (represented by, at least during the survey for the landing stage on Isle de France, a certain Lieutenant Street [AAR 1810-11 [1812]: ‘History’, 16]) – hence, perhaps, we in 1811 find the Emma under command of a A.G. Noayle (East India Register and Directory […] for 1811: 119). Frazer Sinclair’s next exploits apparently were to help piloting the Minto/Raffles fleet to Java in 1811; but that's another story; in 1812, however, he commands a Lady Rollo, trading between Calcutta and Eastern Indonesia. Horst Liebner, David van Dyke; Makassar, Jakarta; khmail@indosat.net.id