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| Temperance stranded on the shoal 6th March |
Too much going on, so unfortunately the blog was a casualty. Everything is good, lots of projects on the go, Warfare Miniatures really busy which is part of the problem! Too much casting keeps me away from many other important things.
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| Rupert and his French allies failed to capture Temperance |
As a little place holder I thought I would feature the campaign history of a ship which was initially a bit part player. She was generated by a random event which I thought might come and go but, has become a central plank of the whole story..
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| Rupert was frustrated by not being able to close in during the first attack. |
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| Rupert's duel with Thomas Darbyshire |
This attempt failed and the French departed. Rupert and his men tried again the next day and succeeded although he himself was almost killed in a duel with the ferocious master of the slaver Thomas Darbyshire. So impressed by his foe, Rupert offered him a captaincy which he accepted, but to date has been too infirm to be active in. Rupert did run him through twice during their duel!
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| Temperance (now Mars at right) fighting off Dutch privateers |
No sooner had Temperance been captured renamed Mars and a skeleton crew installed than the two ships had to anchor, backs to the shore to fight off ten Dutch privateers. Mars was captured but during the assault, the Dutch were so enfeebled by their efforts that vacant possession was taken once more by men from Swallow.
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| Ambushed in the upper reaches Mars is captured |
She sailed to the careenage which the Royalists abandoned to move up river. At Albadar, Rupert fell in wtih Egon Heemskeerke, a Dutch adventurer who claimed to know the location of the lost Spanish Treasury ship Santiago. He bargained with the Royalists for a larger ship to co-lead the expedition and got command of Mars onto which he placed his own composite Dutch and Swedish crew. Heemskerke is an agent of the Swedish Africa Company operating out of the Gold Coast. This mission is thus, a side-hustle.
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| Up the creek - A Royailst victory but Mars escapes |
Having set out up river the expedition collided with Sicilians who had been operating for some weeks in the upper reaches of The Gambia. Mars was surprisingly overwhelmed by the pirate Occhiali and the Royalists forced to retreat. The 'golden ticket' Heemskerke, was captured and so Rupert had to get him back in order to find the gold which would finance the prosecution of the king's war to defeat Cromwell.
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| The night attack took the fort but Heemskerke was not there. |
Having regrouped and been reinforced by the arrival of Prince Maurice with the rest of the squadron, the Royalists attacked up a tributary, defeated the Sicilians, captured their flagship and Occhiali but, not Heemskerke or Mars which escaped further upriver with a sloop. The Dutchman was supposedly being kept in a fort nearby. During a night attack the Royalists took the fort but Heemskerke was not there. The remaining Sicilian ships barricaded themselves across the upper reaches of the tributary and now, on the 21st of March, Mars is once more in action and Rupert has to capture her all over again.
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| And here we are.. March 21st - a cutting out operation in a croc infested bolon. |
The narrow, shallow, crocodile infested bolon cannot accommodate large men o' war so Rupert, Maurice, Captain Robert Fearnes and Master gunner William Babbington are leading about 120 men in a cutting out operation against the broadsides and longboats of the Sicilians..