Service
In 1840 Gorgon saw action with three other paddle sloops, Vesuvius, Stromboli and Phoenix, in the bombardment of the city of Acre under the command of Admiral Robert Stopford.
In 1843, during the Uruguayan Civil War, Gorgon arrived in the River Plate to join the Royal Navy squadron commanded by Commodore John Purvis. She anchored in the bay as a deterrent to potential attackers. She ran aground on 10 May 1844 but was subsequently refloated.
From 23 February 1854 to 8 May 1854 Gorgon was commanded by Commander (and Captain) Arthur Cumming.
In 1858 Gorgon assisted in the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable by taking soundings for the former warship HMS Agamemnon, which had been converted into a cable ship. When the cable link was completed to New York, the crew of the Gorgon and the other ships were feted by civic receptions and processions through the city.
Gorgon was despatched to Madagascar in 1863 to keep the peace on the death of King Radama II. She returned via the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Spithead on 29 January 1864. She discharged her ammunition and guns at the Royal Arsenal, was paid out of commission on 11 February.
Despite being decommissioned, Gorgon had one last mission. The vessel was towed to Greenhithe on 6 May 1864 to act as a receiving hulk for the crew of HMS Osborne, seven of whom had acquired smallpox. The ship was ultimately dismantled at Woolwich. She was sold to Charlton for breaking on 17 October 1864.
Read more about this topic: HMS Gorgon (1837)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men to thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Barnard’s greatest war service ... was the continuance of full-scale instruction in the liberal arts ... It was Barnard’s responsibility to keep alive in the minds of young people the great liberal tradition of the past and the study of philosophy, of history, of Greek.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)