The Wrecks of HM Frigates Assurance (1753) and Pomone (1811): Including the fascinating naval career of Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Barrie, KCB, KCH (1774–1841)

With the thought of treasure, Isle of Wight islander, Derek Williams researched ancient local wreck records. Top of his extensive wreck list was the 40-gun frigate Assurance lost in 1753 while returning from Jamaica with Governor Trelawny on board, whose story possibly inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write Treasure Island. Derek’s first dive at the western point of the Isle of Wight called “The Needles” put him on top of cannons, various wreckage and Spanish-American “Pieces of Eight”, all scattered at the foot of the rock face. He reported this astonishing discovery to the authorities which resulted in the site being designated the 6th British historic protected wreck site.

When the authorities decided that further professional help was needed, author and diver John Bingeman supplied his Portsmouth Royal Naval diving team, and together with David Tomalin, County Archaeologist, developed the full potential of this important site. Over the next nine years John Bingeman’s team conducted annual visits to excavate the site; they successfully recovered 3,471 artifacts including cannon weighing 1½ tons. Some of these cannon post-dated the Assurance, leading to the identification of a second 38-gun frigate, the Pomone, lost in 1811. Her Captain, Robert Barrie’s extensive correspondence was discovered by Paul Simpson to have been archived by Duke University, North Carolina. It features Pomone’s continuous actions during the French Napoleonic wars, followed by his appointment to the 74-gun Dragon when he saw action in Chesapeake Bay during the 1812-15 war with the USA. Returning to North America as Senior Naval Officer Canada, Commodore Barrie made quite a name for himself improving the political relationship between the USA and Canada; he is remembered by the Canadian City named Barrie.

Previously unresearched archaeological finds are featured, including the development of rigging blocks, gunlocks, military buttons and ship’s chain pumps, all superbly illustrated, as well as the results of research into numerous other artifacts of the period. Appendices contain the transcripts of the two ship’s court martials and make fascinating reading. Captains seem to be blameless while their navigating officers are held responsible even going to prison. Perhaps not surprising when tried by fellow Captains!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Mar 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781789256383

Book preview

Introduction

The world-wide availability of the aqualung enabled divers to experience the wonders of the underwater world. The nautical history of the British Isles could be brought to life from the remains of shipwrecks dating back 2000 years. The massive increase in recreational diving engendered by this technology led to increasing concern that interesting artefacts were being recovered by sport divers without any record of their origin or historical importance. To save British National heritage, the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 was passed to protect this remarkable addition to the country’s terrestrial heritage. Following the passing of the Act, six sites were designated with the 44-gun Assurance (1753), on the Needles, Isle of Wight, which is off the south coast of England, being the sixth to receive this official protection (Fig. 1).

Derek Williams, living on the Isle of Wight, was tempted by the thought of treasure after the press featured discoveries from Spanish treasure ships lost in the West Indies. Diving off the most western point of the Isle of Wight, Derek discovered scattered cannon and, to his delight, even ‘treasure’ in the form of Spanish-American ‘Pieces of Eight’. He, unlike many who kept such a find secret, informed the Isle of Wight County Council authorities of his discovery, leading to Assurance’s official designation, giving the site legal protection from diver trespass.

The exposed Needles wreck site where HM frigate Assurance’s remains lay scattered was far from an ideal place to explore and recover remains systematically, with strong currents well in excess of the speed recommended for safe diving. The sea was seldom fully calm which made it exceptionally challenging. Derek with his small group of friends needed further help in recording the wreck site. The authority monitoring British historic wreck sites, the Advisory Committee for Historic Wreck Sites, invited Commander John Bingeman with a team of Royal Naval club divers to assist.

In 1978, the naval team took on the challenge with Derek continuing to be involved. John’s first task was to carry out a pre-disturbance survey (see Fig. 7), a prerequisite before any artefacts could be recovered. While John had had experience of the Mary Rose wreck site during the 6 years prior to her recovery, he was faced by a completely different challenge. The conventional underwater tools of an air-dredge or airlift aided by the traditional trowel were entirely inappropriate. John issued 2-lb hammers and a coal chisel to each of his divers. To free the cannons, the task entailed chipping away the chalk concretions, a hard amalgam formed by the iron guns and numerous cannon balls reacting with the chalk bedrock. Particular care was needed when breaking up concretions not to damage small artefacts similarly trapped.

During the course of excavations the remains of several other identifiable shipwrecks came to light; among them were the 38-gun Pomone, sunk off Goose Rock on 14 October 1811. Pomone was commanded by Captain Robert Barrie and the loss of his ship was subject of a subsequent Court Martial. Recovery of Pomone’s surviving ordnance, ship’s fittings (particularly rigging blocks) and various pieces of equipment, as well as personal items including a fine selection of uniform buttons, was undertaken in parallel with the investigation of the remains of the Assurance by his team.

This volume tells the story of those discoveries and investigations in terms of both the archaeological recording, recovery and conservation of artefacts and fittings; and the fascinating documentary evidence relating to the loss and Court Martial proceedings of the two vessels, transcriptions of which are presented here as Appendices. Documentary research unexpectedly uncovered the private correspondence of Captain, later Rear-Admiral, Robert Barrie (1774–1841), in Duke University, North Carolina and the University of Michigan. Barrie was a career naval officer who commanded HMS Dragon in the American War from 1813 to 1815; fought ashore commanding Royal Marines in the Chesapeake; and served as a senior Naval Officer in Canada from 1817–34 where he had the city of Barrie in Ontario and four other places named after him. The second part of this book provides a biography of Barrie and explores, through his preserved letters, his naval career and his role in helping shape the 19th century history of Canada and the USA.

Artefact Note: Artefacts held by the Isle of Wight County Museum Service have the accession prefix IWCMS: 20001.

From 1978 onwards artefacts retained their ‘Boat Number’ e.g.: Ass/78/DW/2 indicating that this artefact was attributed to the Assurance; was recovered in 1978 by Derek Williams; and was his second recovery that year. Artefacts without an identified origin are suffixed NW e.g.: NW/78/NFB/1.

Figure 1. The location of The Needles, Isle of Wight, the submerged Goose Rock and the positions of the wreckage of the Assurance and Pomone.

Part 1

Investigating the wrecks of the Assurance and Pomone

1

The Needles wreck site: the 44-gun Assurance (1753)

For seafarers, the western approach to the historic naval port of Portsmouth, is impeded by the Isle of Wight. This island has imposed upon all mariners a choice between an offshore course in the open waters of the English Channel or a near-shore route which allows craft to approach through the Solent seaway. Fast, unpredictable currents and tides, frequent tempestuous storms and submerged rocks pose many a hazard to shipping, even today, as vessels enter the western Solent past the off-shore Chalk stacks known as the Needles (Fig. 1). Many a ship has come to grief here over the centuries. This book concerns two of them: His Majesty’s frigates Assurance (1753) and Pomone (1811), combining documentary records relating to their loss and the Court Martials that followed with the story of their rediscovery and archaeological recording in the 1970s and ’80s, along with presentation of the artefacts and ship’s fittings that were recovered. Part 2 of the book explores the life and career of Captain, later Rear-Admiral, Robert Barrie who was in command of the Pomone when she sank, but went on to have an illustrious naval career including operations in the American War (1813–1815) and as a senior Naval Officer in Canada. His letters, held in archive at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, provide fascinating insights and are reproduced here in full.

The Needles wreck site and the lighthouse today

Today, the Needles are a line of three off-shore stacks projecting westwards from a high chalk promontory (Figs 2 and 3). Three hundred years ago they numbered five. Central within the group was the slender ‘Needle Rock’ known also as ‘Lot’s Wife’. This stack fell in 1764. The most westerly upstanding rock is Lighthouse Rock, modified in 1857–8 to provide a base for the present lighthouse (Figs 2 and 3). Just beyond the tip of this rock lies the submerged stump of another former needle-like stack. Mariners of the 16th century knew this stump as ‘the Goose’. It was on or near this concealed hazard that the 44-gun Assurance, a 5th rate vessel carrying the British Governor of Jamaica, Edward Trelawny, and his wife to Portsmouth, was stranded on 24 April 1753.¹ She broke in two on the afternoon of the 27 April and had largely disappeared by the end of the month.² The aftermath of the sinking, and Court Martial that followed, are discussed below (and see Appendix 1).

Discovery and designation

The first recorded searches for the Assurance (1753; Figs 4 and 5) were undertaken by the Southampton British Sub- Aqua Club in 1966, as a project for the Club prompted by media attention concerning the possible discovery of the wreck of Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose. Their search area started immediately north-west of Goose Rock since, at the time, it was not appreciated that the evidence in the Court Martial transcript had been ‘improved’ to exonerate the officers (see Charnock’s explanation on p. 10). John McKie from the Southampton BS-AC records, in his 15-page report, that they failed to locate any wreckage.³

In 1978 Derek Williams (DRW), an experienced diver whose day job was as a draughtsman at the British Hovercraft factory on the Isle of Wight, gave an account of ‘how it all began’ when he found wreckage in 1969:

I expect that most readers at some time or another, have dreamed of finding treasure, and I had long been interested in the subject before I took up skin-diving in 1956. Reading numerous books on the Caribbean Islands and South America, the Silver Mines of Peru, Pieces of Eight, the Spanish Treasure Ships, all served to whet my appetite in this particular form of life. How my treasure ship was to make itself known to me was still unknown, as in the late 50s and early 60s I became more and more interested and experienced in skin-diving. I soon exhausted most of the early outlets for skin-diving such as spear-fishing, photography, catching lobsters and minor salvage work (with no great success). None of them seemed to quite fulfil the need that I had, to achieve something underwater, on my own, and which in its own small way had not been done before. It was from this stage in my skin-diving career that I formed the notion that I would very much like to find a sunken sailing ship of my own preferably carrying treasure!

At about this time the story of HMS Association (1707) and other shipwrecks were making headlines in the press, with tales of thousands of silver coins. This became the trigger to my venture and I was hooked by the lure of a shipwreck off the coast of the Isle of Wight.

But where to start? Local records and a well-known local book ‘Back of the Wight’ list scores of wrecks since the 14th century, but very few recorded contained much wealth that was lost. I compiled a shortlist of just three ships that seemed likely candidates, and for no other reason than alphabetical order, the first was HMS Assurance, April 1753, a 44-gun ship (see Fig. 8) lost at the Needles. The ship had sailed from Jamaica calling at Lisbon with the retiring Governor of Jamaica and his wife. The crew were all saved. The search was on!

What better way to spend the winter of 1968/9 than pursuing one’s hobby of researching old books, documents, etc to try and establish the circumstances of the wrecking and if possible the position of the wreck site; after all, the waters in the vicinity of the Needles is a large area. By the spring of 1969 I had a very good idea of the position of the wreck, and in early June I engaged the services of a local fisherman, who agreed rather reluctantly to take me off the Needles one weekend, and stand by while I dived and tried to locate the site.

On June 14 1969 my fisherman friend dropped the anchor ‘near the spot’ that I had chosen, and as I donned my diving gear I could never have believed what astonishing ‘beginner’s’ luck I was to have on this very first dive. So accurate was my information that I landed almost right on top of a group of rusting ships’ cannon, and all around on the seabed were scattered artefacts of green coated copper, cannon balls and lead shot. Of course there was no sign of the ship’s hull – that had long since been smashed to pieces in over 200 years of winter gales; but there it was, a wreck site. I will never forget that moment, the exhilaration is indescribable.

Many seasons of interesting diving and underwater work lay ahead, culminating in the finding of silver coin, mostly ‘Pieces of Eight’ buried in the concretions on the sea-bed. So the story had come full circle – from my early reading of South American treasure to a present-day detective story, which has brought myself and my small team of divers the utmost pleasure and satisfaction.

Figure 2. The Needles lighthouse (photograph courtesy of Trinity House).

Figure 3. Aerial views of the Needles (photographs: JMB’s collection).

Figure 4. Engraving by R Short 1750. The 44-gun Diamond (1741–56) is in the middle; she is a sister ship to the 44-gun Assurance (1747–53).

Figure 5. The draughts of the 44-gun Assurance were stolen and are held in Denmark (pers. comm. Bingeman Dr David Lyon Draughts Office, National Maritime Museum 1978). Following JMB’s request to the National Maritime Museum’s Draught Office, they supplied draughts for the 44-gun Penzance, built to the same plan.

In the absence of thorough historical research, these early dives soon began to present a perplexing array of artefacts attesting to a number of past shipwreck events which Derek was prompt to recognise. First to be observed was a scatter of iron guns resting at depths of 7–8 m below the wave-cut high-water line. These guns were very heavily concreted⁴ and their detail could not be easily examined or recorded in their underwater context. While the 9- and 18-pounder guns were generally recognisable, the identity and significance of some smaller pieces of iron ordnance were less obvious. Also present was a scatter of Spanish-American coins, most of which had been struck during or before the year 1749. Exceptions included one Portuguese copper coin of 10-reis which had been struck in 1752 and examples of 8- and 2-real pieces which could also be attributed to this latter year.⁵

The first designation order under UK’s then newly passed Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 was the Cattewater Wreck site at Plymouth, with a possible build date for the vessel of 1520. More sites were designated before the Assurance at the Needles on the 11 April 1974 (Fig. 6). On this occasion the wreck was incorrectly assigned a date of 1738. She was the 6th and last site to be so designated by the Marine Division of the Department of Trade. In future, all applications for designation would be considered by the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites (ACHWS) under the chairmanship of Viscount Runciman of Doxford. The Committee was often referred to as ‘The Runciman Committee’; it consisted of 14 eminent representatives from the maritime, sport diving and archaeological worlds. DRW with Leigh Pragnell, a diving friend of his who also worked at British Hovercraft attended the very first Licensees’ biannual meetings held in the Tower of London. These meeting provided a regular and valuable opportunity for Licensees to exchange experiences.

The 1973 Act stipulated that any archaeological research and/or recovery of material on protected wreck sites could only be undertaken on the grant of a government licence and licensees were expected to recover artefacts and ensure their conservation including being declared to the Receiver of Wreck. Artefacts were normally released to the Licensee in lieu of paying salvage.

Figure 6. Statutory Instrument for the Assurance historic wreck site’s designation.

By 1977 it was evident that further help was needed with the increased diving commitment required in applying standard archaeological principles, a pre-disturbance survey (Fig. 7) and having the resources to successfully excavate the site. Portsmouth Royal Naval Sub-Aqua Club had the diving capability and facilities to provide that support, with diving operations reorganised and directed by Commander John Bingeman (JMB), then Chairman of the Royal Navy & Royal Marine Sub-Aqua Association with a 65 ft MFV at his disposal and a large team of competent divers. On the 1 August 1978, Dr Margaret Rule, the ACHWS Committee member and director of the ongoing excavation of the wreck of Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose, sunk off Portsmouth in 1545, along with two of her most experienced diving colleagues, Andrew Fielding and Adrian Barak, and JMB, also a Mary Rose diver, inspected the Needles wreck site, in the vessel MFV119. This was a surplus Ministry of Defence vessel converted by JMB into a diving tender with air compressors and bunk accommodation for 14 crew, suitable for mounting a 2-week expedition to excavate the Needles wreck site. When first commissioned in 1944, she had a US crew, and took part in the D-Day landings at the Omaha Beach and continued to resupply the beach.

DRW and Leigh Pragnell were embarked off Alum Bay to introduce the divers to the site. JMB was conducted round the site by Leigh and had a second dive guided by DRW. Andrew Fielding and Adrian Barak inspected the site on behalf of ACHWS and confirmed the importance of this historic wreck site. As a result of the visit, Dr Rule was satisfied that the site was worthy of its designation and that JMB’s team was competent and had the necessary facilities to undertake the investigation and required recording of the wreck site. Prior to the inspection, on 21 July 1978, a ‘Licence to Survey’ with permission to raise one gun, had already been granted by the ACHWS with David Tomalin (DJT), then assistant curator at Carisbrooke Castle Museum and later the first County Archaeologist for the Isle of Wight, as the Archaeological Supervisor and JMB as the Diving Director.

Between 1978 and 1986 the unified team mounted annual sorties on the site, retrieving an array of loose artefacts after their positions had been plotted in relation to temporary webs drawn between survey pitons, sinkers and guide ropes. It must be remembered that the tech- nology available for underwater excavations at this time was fairly rudimentary by today’s standards and methods of recording, retrieval and, to some extent, conservation were very much in development. Annual summary reports were produced for archiving by JMB and, in accordance with the excavation licence, copies were provided for the British Government’s ACHWS. Later, with the support of the Isle of Wight County Council and the Isle of Wight Archaeological Committee, post-excavation analysis and historical research were conducted by Dr Paul Simpson (PS). The earlier account compiled by DJT unifies the work of the three participants and was published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.⁶ More research has since been conducted by the three authors for this publication.

Figure 7. The 1978 site survey with 1979 additions.

During the 1978 survey (Fig. 7), when examining the guns it became apparent that Gun 7 was a mid-18th-century 9-pounder clearly attributable to Assurance. Other guns had ‘rings’ to their cascabel and with the five carronades, these all post-dated Assurance. DRW had given JMB a list of other vessels lost at the Needles; one of these was the 38-gun Pomone wrecked on 14 October 1811. JMB checked her details with the Draught’s Office at the National Maritime Museum (NMM); these confirmed that both the gun calibre and type lying on the seabed were attributable to Pomone. The Pomone court martial proceedings⁷ (see Appendix 3) further confirmed her identification.

The wrecking of the Assurance and its aftermath

The historian at the NMM, Mr Alan Pearsall provided JMB with the information that Assurance had been wrecked at the Needles on 24 April 1753. Her officers were court martialled under the presidency of Admiral Boscawen onboard the 60-gun Tiger on 11 May the same year; the board included Captains Rodney and Barrington. The Assurance’s Captain, Carr Scrope and his officers (Fig. 8) were all acquitted apart from the Master, one David Patterson, who was held fully responsible; he was sentenced to 3 months at the Marshalsea, the London debtors’ prison (see Appendix 1).⁸

The sentence was mitigated in view of the ‘obscurity of the rock’ and his general good character. The ship struck on what was said by three pilots to be an unknown rock lying west by north or west-north-west of the Needles Rock. On the next day, worried that an uncharted rock could exist so close to a busy channel leading to Portsmouth, the Admiralty sent an order to the Navy Board for a survey to be made ‘… for other rocks by Captain Pott, Senior Captain of the Guardships at P’th’. Their survey report (Fig. 9) states that, not surprisingly, they had failed to locate this unknown rock.

Almost immediately after the stranding, assistance from the Portsmouth Yard began. The Master Attendant and Master Shipwright reported that the Old Truelove, the Boatswain of the Yarmouth Hulk, the Foreman Afloat and some hands (location at the time unrecorded) ‘found too much sea to venture near her’. More vessels were prepared to be sent to her assistance. Assurance broke in two on the afternoon of 27 April and had largely disappeared by the end of the month.⁹ The breaking up and sinking of the hull is supported by a report:

By the accounts we have received from Commiss’r Hughes, of the Stores recover’d from the Wreck of the Assurance, there have been nothing of consequence lately taken up except some guns, Carriages, and other Ordnance Stores, and as to employing the Vessel & Men longer than is absolutely necessary will greatly retard the Current Business of the Yard, We desire you will acquaint the Rt. Hon’ble the Lords Commiss’rs of the Adm’ty therewith, & that We may know their Lordships’ pleasure, whether the Vessels and Men should Board of Ordnance may be desired to Pay the charge that will attend the said service … (A. Mckee pers. comm. to JMB)

A minute by the Admiralty on the reverse of the above reads:

16 May. To recall the Vessels & Men from the Wreck & send the Bd. of Ordnance an Account of what stores hath been recover’d belonging to them.

An alternate explanation to the disaster

The well-known naval historian John Charnock, writing many years later, came up with a different explanation:

We have heard a singular anecdote relative to the loss of this ship. ‘Governor Trelawny, as the ship was approaching the Needle Rock, being at that time about a league distant from it, asked as a question, suggested by mere curiosity, what depth of water there was round it, and how near the ship would pass to that part of the rock appearing above water. The master answered, they should pass so close that the fly of the ensign might touch the rock. This answer, probably not intended as a literal one, was strictly and unfortunately verified, for the ship, after she hung, heeling with the fall of the tide, the prediction, if it could be called one, was strictly fulfilled. The master was afterwards tried; and it being proved that the projection of the rock, occasioning the loss of the ship, was unknown to the best pilot, he was only sentenced to be imprisoned three months in the Marshalsea’.¹⁰

Reading the Court Martial proceedings in Appendix 1, it seems more than likely that John Charnock’s account reflected what actually happened.

Captain Carr Scrope (1719–62)

The third son of a respectable Lincolnshire family, Carr Scrope entered the Navy at an early age, as was often the custom. His service record is sparse; it is thought he became a Lieutenant in or about 1742 while serving on board the 90-gun Neptune. This ship took part in the encounter off Toulon against the combined fleets of France and Spain. Promoted Commander on 11 August 1746, he took command of the 14-gun Whitehaven that caught fire and burnt off the West Coast of Ireland in September 1747.