The bicentenary of the birth of Sir Charles Brisbane has been commemorated by three stamps of St. Vincent. Sir Charles was the fourth son of Admiral John Brisbane, who died in 1807, and was entered on board his father’s ship, H.M.S. Alcide, in 1779. He was present at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, and the relief of Gibraltar in January 1780, and afterwards in the West Indies. At the end of 1781 he was transferred to the Hercules, under Capt. Savage, and was present as a midshipman at the Battle of the Saints on April 12, 1782, being badly wounded by a splinter. He served under Rodney, Hood and Nelson, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, on November 22, 1790. Sir Charles went out to the Mediterranean in 1793 in the frigate Meleager, and came under the direct orders of Nelson. He was actively employed ashore at Toulon, and then at San Fiorenzo and at the siege of Bastia. Like Capt. Horatio Nelson, he too received a severe wound in the head, losing an eye, as a result of shot splinters.
Brisbane afterwards served in H.M.S. Britannia bearing the flag of Admiral Hood, in 1794, before being transferred to the sloop Tarleton later that year, serving in the Gulf of Genoa, again under the immediate orders of Nelson. In the autumn of 1795, he was sent from Gibraltar to convoy two troopships to Barbados and fell in with a Dutch squadron. Keeping in touch with the Dutch ships, he sent the convoy on by themselves, until finding out where the Dutchmen were bound, which turned out to be the Cape of Good Hope. Brisbane made speed to pass on this information to Sir George Elphinstone, commander-in¬chief, Gibraltar. His acting on his own initiative in this way, contrary to his orders, led to the capture of the Dutch ships at Saldanha Bay, on August 18, 1796. After the Dutch ships had been captured, Brisbane was promoted by Sir George to be the commander of one of them, only to find that he had been promoted on July 22, by Sir John Jervis, commander-in-chief, Mediterranean under whose orders he had sailed. He also received the thanks of the Admiralty.
At the Cape of Good Hope he was given the command of the Oiseau, a 5th Rate, of 36 guns, formerly the French Cleopatre, captured on January 18, 1793, by H.M.S. Nymphe, off the Start. She became a prison ship in 1810, and was sold in 1816. Whilst in the Oiseau, a dangerous mutiny broke out on board. This was quelled by Brisbane’s firm and decisive measures, and he was shortly afterwards recalled to the Cape to take command of the Tremendous, Rear-Admiral Pringle’s flagship, on board which the mutinous spirit had also threatened extreme danger.
In 1798 he returned to England with Pringle in the frigate H.M.S. Crescent. In 1801 he was appointed to the Doris, a frigate, one of the squadron off Brest, under Admiral Cornwallis. During a short period he commanded the frigate Trent and the Sanspareil in the West lndies. He was afterwards moved to the Goliath in which he was nearly lost in a hurricane on his way home.
In 1805 he was appointed to the frigate Arethusa, the ship shown on the 30c stamp. Early in 1806 he had the misfortune to run the ship ashore amongst the Colorado rocks, near the North-West of Cuba and she got off only by throwing all her guns overboard. In this defenceless condition she fell in with a Spanish ship-of-the-line off Havana, but fortunately the Spanish Captain, ignorant of the Arethusas weakness, did not consider himself a match for even a 38-gun frigate and ran in under the guns of Morro Castle.
After refitting at Jamaica the Arethusa was, in August again off Havana, and in company with the Anson of 44 guns, captured the Spanish frigate Pomona anchored within pistol shot of a battery mounting 11 36-pounders and supported by 10 gunboats. The gunboats were all destroyed. The battery blew up, apparently by some accident to the furnaces used for heating shot, by which the Arethusa had been set on fire, but without any serious consequences, although she had two men killed and 32, including Capt. Brisbane, wounded.
Undoubtedly the Arethusa’s most famous exploit was the capture of the island of Curacao, when accompanied by the Utile, Latona, and Fisgard. On New Year’s Day, 1807, they overcame the amazing strength of the fortifications of that island’s harbour, the entrance to which is only 50 yards wide. It was fortified by a chain of forts and batteries — Fort Amsterdam alone mounting 66 pieces of cannon, and Fort Republique, which enfiladed the whole, being considered impregnable. Two frigates and two large schooners-of-war lay at the entrance. Making their attack at dawn, the enemy were panic stricken and in complete confusion; the ships-of-war were almost immediately carried by boarding, and by seven o’clock the forts, citadel and town were in possession of the English; the Dutch losing 200 men killed, with a loss of three seamen killed and 14 wounded.
The coat-of-arms on the 20c. stamp depicts the capture of the island with the British ships entering the harbour. For this success Brisbane was knighted. He continued in command of the Arethusa until the end of 1808, when he was transferred to the Blake. (shown on the $1 stamp). but was almost immediately afterwards appointed Governor of the island of St. Vincent, which office he held, without any further service at sea, until his death in December 1829. On January 2, 1815 he had been nominated a K.C.B. and attained flag rank on August 12, 1819..The Battle Honours of the Arethusa and Blake are still carried by their ships of that name in the Royal Navy today.
The Arethusa was a 5th Rate, of 38 guns, built at Bristol in 1781. Her tonnage was 948 builders’ measurement; length 141 ft., beam 39 ft. She was broken up May 1814, at Sheerness. The second ship of the name, the first was the captured French 5th Rate Arethuse, which was renamed Arethusa after her capture on May 18 1759. She was wrecked on March 19, 1779 off Ushant. SG348/349
