Charles Brisbane - Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

During the short Peace of Amiens he commanded the frigate HMS Trent and the HMS Sanspareil in the West Indies. He was then moved into HMS Goliath, in which on his way home he was nearly lost in a hurricane. In 1805 Brisbane was appointed to the frigate HMS Arethusa, which he took to the West Indies. Early in 1806 he ran Arethusa ashore amongst the Colorados rocks, near the north-west end of Cuba, and she was got off only by throwing all her guns overboard. In this defenceless condition she encountered a Spanish ship of the line off Havana, but the enemy vessel ran in under the guns of Morro Castle. Having refitted at Jamaica, the Arethusa was in August again off Havana, and on the 23rd, in company with the 44-gun HMS Anson, captured the Spanish frigate Pomona, anchored near a battery, and supported by ten gunboats. The gunboats were all destroyed and the battery blown up, apparently by some accident to the furnaces for heating shot, by which the Arethusa had been set on fire; she had two men killed, and thirty-two, including Captain Brisbane, wounded.

On 1 January 1807 Brisbane, still in Arethusa, with three other frigates, having been sent off Curaçao, reduced the forts and captured the island from the Dutch. For his success on this occasion Brisbane was knighted, and he, as well as the other three captains, received a gold medal. He continued in command of the Arethusa till near the end of 1808, when he was transferred to the 74-gun HMS Blake, but was almost immediately afterwards appointed governor of the island of Saint Vincent. He held the post, without any further service at sea, until his death on the island in December 1829. On 2 January 1815 he had been nominated a KCB, and attained his flag rank on 12 August 1819.