Rosario HMS

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Rosario HMS

Post by shipstamps » Sat Sep 06, 2008 10:25 am


Watercraft Philately 38/04 gives that the ROSARIO is depict on a stamp of 44c issued in 1986 by Micronesia, but she is not given in Stanley Gibbons, Collect ships on stamps, I like to have a scan of this stamp, can anyone help.

Built as a third class sloop by Deptford Drydock at Deptford for the Royal Navy.
The class was a design by Isaac Watts.
01 April 1857 ordered. 13 June 1859 keel laid down.
17 October 1860 launched under the name HMS ROSSARIO, six sisters the AFRICA, COLUMBINE, PETEREL,RAPID,ROYALIST and SHEARWATER.
Tonnage 673 ton (bm), displacement 913 ton. Dim. 48.76 x 9.24 x 5.02m. (draught)
Armament 1 – 40pdr., Armstrong breech-loading (BL) gun. 6 – 32pdr., 4 – 20pdr. guns.
Powered by horizontal single-expansion steam engine, manufactured by Greenock Founder Co., 436 ihp., speed 9.2 knots. One screw.
Crew 130.
20 June 1862 commissioned.
July 1862 completed.
First commission was, on the North America and West Indies Station, where she mostly was used to hunt down slavers off Cuba.
13 October 1866 paid off for a refit in the U.K.
After a refit at Sheerness again commissioned on 28 September 1867, she sailed to Australia to join the Australian Station in November 1867.
During the 1860s large numbers of labour were needed to work on the plantations at Fiji and Queensland, N.S.W., and kidnapping of the native islanders of the Pacific Islands were rife.
1869 During a three month cruise in the South Seas from Sydney under command of Captain George Palmer, she met the DAPHNE a 48 ton schooner, which under command of John Daggett, an American, the ROSARIO seized the DAPHNE, thinking she was a slaver, and escorted her back to Sydney. When the case came for the court it was dismissed for lack of evidence. http://www.vanuatu.usp.ac.fj/journal_sp ... nesen1.htm

22 September 1874 she visited Kosrae one of the Micronesia Group, at that time she was under command of Commander A.E.Dupuis, she sailed the first week of October from the island, taking with hem some crewmembers of the LEONORA which under command of Capt. Bully Hayes, was wrecked on the island on 15 March 1874. (Capt Bull Hayes is an other very famous name in the Pacific) The ROSARIO was underway to the Marshall Islands, and visited several islands of the Marshall Group.
Under the command of Lieutenant A.H.Markman she was dispatched to sail to the New Hebrides and the Santa Cruz groups to patrol this waters and wipe out the “blackbirding” practice.
After 16 weeks on patrol she had succeeded in wiping out most of the traffic.
July 1870 she made a voyage to New Zealand where she visited Auckland, Napier and Turanganui.
17 November 1871 on patrol in the waters off Api in the New Hebrides, she sighted a brig under close reefed top-sails, after given the brig a signal to ‘heave to’ the brig hoisted the British ensign, but stayed on her course, after firing of a gun, the brig ‘heaved to’, she was the CARL from Melbourne bound for Fiji, after examination of the papers and cargo she was allowed to proceed.
The CARL was a ‘blackbirder’ after sailing from Melbourne she sailed to the islands and lured natives on board, closed the poor men in the hold, eighty were caught. After she went to sea, the natives attacked the main hatchway. The crew of the CARL fired on the men in the hold for 8 hours, and when everything was quiet, they were ordered on deck, only a few appeared, fifty were killed and all the others wounded, the corpses thrown overboard also 16 men who were badly wounded were thrown overboard. The ship was carefully whitewashed and the papers revised. When she was met by the ROSARIO it did appear in legal order, and she could proceed.
After she was relief by the HMS DIDO she sailed from Australia in early 1875 bound for the U.K.
12 October 1875 paid off. Then used as hulk for young criminals.
31 January 1884 sold to Castle at Charlton, U.K. for breaking up.

The Fiji Post leaflet gives:
HMS ROSARIO was one of a number of British warships sent in 1867 to patrol the Pacific in order to investigate and curtail abuses arising from the recruitment of Melanesian Island labourers to work in plantations in Queensland and Fiji. Most famously in 1871 it intercepted the brig CARL, which was later discovered to have kidnapped many Melanesians, and murdered over fifty of them when they rioted during the voyage. This and similar incidents led to the ready acceptance of Fiji’s offer of Cession to Britain in 1874.

Auke Palmhof

Source: The Sail & Steam Navy List by David Lyon and Rif Winfield. Ships of the Australia Station by John Bastock. http://www.janeresture.com/kanakas

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