H.M.S. Dolphin; built at Woolwich Dockyard, 1751. Sixth rate, 20 9-pdr. guns. She surveyed the Tokelau Islands in 1765 under Commodore Byron, the event commemorated by the stamp. In the following years she made a world voyage under Capt. Wallis, R.N., leaving in 1766 and returning home in 1768. This famous voyage is commemorated by a 33f stamp issued in 1955 by the Wallis and Futuna Islands, the name of the Wallis group being in honour of the ship's captain; from the same territory came a 12f stamp in 1967; and a 40f stamp of French Polynesia in 1968. It has been recorded that the Dolphin was a copper-sheathed barque of 511 tons, the second to be so constructed, with a length of 113 ft., and a 32 ft. beam. The stamp, however, shows her as a ship, not as a barque. From time to time her guns probably were changed, a common practice of the period, to give the ship more or less balance as occasion demanded. One list gives her with 24 guns, not 20, but this sort of thing was not unusual. The Dolphin was surveying from 1764 to 1770. She was broken up in January 1777.
SG22 Sea Breezes 1/71