Fate
On 14 September 1782, Captain William Wolseley took command of Coventry. On the night of 12 January 1783, he sailed her towards four large vessels at Ganjam Roads, believing them to be some East Indiamen for which he was searching to convoy to Calcutta. He had no information that French vessels were in the area and so allowed the current to take him towards the vessels, the wind being weak. When he realized that they were French vessels, part of the fleet under Suffren, he was unable to escape. The French vessels opened fire and Wolseley had no choice but to surrender.
The French sailed Coventry to Brest, where they decommissioned her in January 1785. She was broken up either later that year or in 1786.
Read more about this topic: HMS Coventry (1757)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination—unstanchable as that red flood may be—but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)