MONTAGUE

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aukepalmhof
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MONTAGUE

Post by aukepalmhof » Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:55 pm

The following I found in Log Book Volume 15 of May 1986 and written by Tom Lloyd.
Built as a wooden brig rigged ship at Falmouth for Lake & Co.
Launched as the MONTAGUE
180 Ton.
Armament 8 – 9pdrs, 2 – 6pdrs guns.
Captain George Tippet was appointed on 30th July 1810, before she actual completion, though he never commanded her while on postal duties.
She was chartered in 1811 as a Falmouth Packet by the Post Office.
In 1810 a ’Convention for the Agreements of Packets between His Britannic Majesty and His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent of Portugal was signed on February the 19th at Rio de Janeiro. This covered the packet route to the Brazilian port of Bahia and/or Rio de Janeiro, which was increased to the number of ports of call in Brazil; plus an extra ‘en-route’ stop. The final development meant that the route from England set off from Falmouth, called at Funchal, (Madeira) for one day; Santa Cruz (Tenerife) for a few hours, then Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio in Brazil. This proved successful and so continued to the route used until the year 1850.
It was on this South American Packet services that the 180 ton MONTAGUE found her main employment, first sailing from Falmouth on the tenth of October 1812, captained since the fifth of July 1811 by Johnathan A. Norway. She got there o.k. but on Christmas Day she departed from Rio on her first and rather eventful, return journey, during which she was attacked by a sixteen-gun, American pirate ship which she heroically beat off after a battle lasting three hours. Most of MONTAGUE’s ammunition, in the form of ‘shot’ was used up – to such an extent that it has been reported that one of her crew estimated that a mere extra quarter of an hour, would have meant certain defeat!!
Two of the MONTAGUE’s sailers were wounded and the ship herself suffered great damage to her rigging and sails. Limping slowly back she arrived at Torbay on the 27th of February 1813, and in the south Westerly gales the mail was taken ashore at Brixham. It was on Saint David’s Day (March 1st) that she finally made it into harbour at Falmouth.
On the 18th of October 1813, the MONTAGUE, sailed again from Falmouth and on landing at Madeira found that, quite unexpectedly, she had caught up with the previous South American Packet, the (first) LADY MARY PELHAM. They sailed from there together, but on the second of November they both came under attack from the GLOBE, another American schooner privateer, armed with ‘eight, nine-pounder’ guns, plus an extra, ‘long gun’ in the bows; and carrying about a hundred pirates.
Skippered by a Captain Moon, the GLOBE was from Baltimore and early in the battle, this ship ‘totally disabled’ the MONTAGUE which however, somehow continued in action. Her captain and four members of the crew were killed, while seven others were very seriously injured. The GLOBE was finally beaten off by the two courageous packets, which then immediately sailed to the shelter of Tenerife, where MONTAGUE left her wounded crewmen for hospitalization. The LADY MARY PELHAM went on to Brazil, from whence she set sail, back again on the 7th of January 1814, arriving eventually at Falmouth. The MONTAGUE on the other hand, left Tenerife on the 18th of December to return to Falmouth (Having I assume transferred the mail to the LADY MARY PELHAM); and called at Madeira on the 2nd of January 1814. Having been badly damaged, she was driven onshore at the Scilly Islands twelve days later; and was ‘holed in the bilges’. After attention, she struggled on to Falmouth, where she ‘docked’ on the last day of February.
After repairs, etc. the MONTAGUE set sail for the South Americas once more, leaving Falmouth on Christmas Day 1814 now commanded by her third, and last captain John Watkins (appointed on the fourth of February, whilst she had been on the way home from Madeira.)
This time the MONTAGUE is reported to have left England with a shortage of crew members and without all her stores on board. On Boxing Day, her luck (if she ever had any!) ran out again, for this time she ran foul of a brig at 9 o’clock, being put aground until about 2.30 p.m. The rest of this particular journey was however, quite peaceful, for she got herself to Rio in one piece, sailing for home once more on the 15th of March 1815, and arriving back at Falmouth on the 7th May.
The next recorded voyage of the MONTAGUE, for the South American Packet Service, that I can discover, commenced on her leaving Falmouth, on the tent of December 1817. This time she seems to have had a completely uneventful outward voyage; but after leaving Rio de Janeiro on the 26th of February 1818, she again came into contact with a pirate ship; this time one from Buenos Aires. This was the eighteen-gun RATTLER, whose captain, in complete contradiction to the commonly held ideas of ‘pirates’ and unlike the North American counterparts, is said to have behaved ‘ with the greatest politeness’ so the relieved crew of the MONTAGUE continued to sail her back to England, getting in to Falmouth on the 29th of April 1818.
The MONTAGUE seems then too have disappeared from the record books, until,that is, 1820, when she set sail for another ‘Packet trip’ on the 18th of October. Firstly under the direction of Lord Castereagh she was ordered to ‘tough-in’ at Lisbon, presumably to deliver or collect more mail. After leaving there, she became leaky and had to go to Gibraltar, for urgent repair work. She arrived at Pernambuco in Brazil on the 7th of February 1821; and then on the eleventh found herself being fired upon by the guns of the fort guarding the harbour at Bahia! She got ‘in’ and ‘out’ all right, however and the continued to Rio, from whence she re-sailed on the 18th of March. On the 27th of May, she docked once again at Falmouth.
During the year of 1823, the MONTAGUE, actually succeeded in sailing the ‘round trip’ from England to Brazil and back again without any reported trouble or misadventure leaving Cornwall on the fourteenth of May and Rio on the twentieth of July. She called at Bahia on the fourth of August. Pernambuco on the twelfth, and got back to Falmouth harbour on the tenth of September.
However, exactly one year later, the MONTAGUE sailed from the Cornish port on what was to become the last voyage as Packet Ship. This her final trip was to be very short duration, for, early in her voyage, she suddenly sprang such a serious leak, that on putting in at Tenerife only fifteen days ‘out’ she was surveyed and condemned by the authorities. The mail she was carrying was later added to that of the following packet ship, the EMULOUS which had left Falmouth on the fifteenth of October; and both lots of post arrived at Rio on the nineteenth of December, just in time for Christmas.
Letters taken by these Falmouth packets to and from Brazil can be identified by special marks which were applied to them and which can be found illustrated in Alan Robertson’s encyclopaedic work “A History of the Ship Letters of the British Isles”. There is for example, the Falmouth Packet Letter mark applied in capital letters, arranged in two lines; and measuring 52mm by 14mm overall, which was used from 1809 t0 1815. Also of interest to anyone looking for an example of MONTAGUE mail, is the circular mark with the work ‘Brazil’ curved above a ‘two line’ date and with the letter ‘F’ for the Falmouth Packet Service at the base; used from 1812 to 1850 most often applied in green though very occasionally found in red ink.
This then has been a mere sketch of the working life of one of the Post Office Packet ships, working the route to Brazil during the early part of the last century. I hope this has brought about the realization that being on board a ‘humble’ Post Office ship, such as the MONTAGUE was no picnic, for it was so fraught with danger, that it was quite often a miracle that the mail got through, but it almost always did. Those odd occasions when it didn’t could well become the subject of a future article.
(I could not find the connection between the MONTAGUE and Montserrat.)

Monserrat 1986 $1.15 sg697. Scott618. (The name is wrongly given on the stamp as MONTAGU.)
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