HMS Pelorus (1808)
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HMS Pelorus was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy. She was built in Itchenor, England and launched on 25 June 1808. She saw action in the Napoleonic Wars and in the War of 1812. On anti-slavery patrol off West Africa, she captured four slavers and freed some 1350 slaves. She charted parts of Australia and New Zealand and participated in the First Opium War (1839–1842) before becoming a merchantman and wrecking in 1844 while transporting opium to China.
HMS Pelorus, as a ship-sloop, ca. 1830
Yacht Xarifa, ex-Segunda Theresa, 1835, by Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, after a sketch by Nicholas Matthew Condy, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
HMS Pelorus at Sydney on 16 June 1838
HMS Pelorus at low water, 1840, by Owen Stanley
Cruizer-class brig-sloop
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The Cruizer class was an 18-gun class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops were the same as ship-sloops except for their rigging. A ship-sloop was rigged with three masts whereas a brig-sloop was rigged as a brig with only a fore mast and a main mast.
The Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Pelorus aground at low water
Sketch of a brig-sloop, probably HMS Clio, by Cmdr. William Farrington, ca. 1812, Peabody Essex Museum
HMS Surinam struck by lightning, 11 December 1806, by Nicholas Matthews Condy, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
An earlier USS Wasp boards the Cruizer-class HMS Frolic, 1812