WHEN WAS THE FOUDROYANT WRECKED?

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2919, 3 November 1916, Page 8

WHEN WAS THE FOUDROYANT WRECKED?

A CLOUD OF WITNESSES. A few days ago we published a ■.paragraph about the line-of-battlesliip Foudroyant, at one time Lord Nelson's» flagship, based upon information supplied by Mr. E. Bezar, who owns a souvenir walking-stick bearing an in-' scription relating to the Foudroyant. Tho accuracy of Mr. Bezar's information, notably in regard to tho Foudroyant being wrecked at Blackpool in 1797, aiid not in 1897, is challenged by Mr. Maurico Dudley, of the AVilliamson Comedy Company, who writes: "Tho Foudroyant was wrecked at Blackpool in 1897, and I was thero at the time. She was at that timo being used as a training-ship, and was blown ashore during a heavy gale. She was blown up about ten months afterwards. Excursions were run to see tho blowing up, and one lady was killed by some of the debris." ' The Publio Librarian (Mr. Horbert Baillio) supports Mr. Dudley by a quotation from Jeffrey's "Century of Our Sea Stories.'" ■ In that book it says that tho Foudroyant was launched in 1798, and would still have been afloat at the timo the book was compiled but for an unfortunate accident. The Foudroyant had been sold to a Gorman firm of shipbrokers, but was. bought back. by an English syndicate,- which conceiyed_ tho idea .of exhibiting tho old warship in the ports of the United Kingdom. She, however, broke away from her moorings at Blackpool in June, 1897, was driven ashoro, and subsequently broken up and sold in bits as souvenirs. Mr. G. V. Graham, of Palmerston North, writes:—l "myself saw the wreck, and even was on it, in August, 1897, taking pieces from her as mementoes. Your informant must he alluding to some other wreck; but it certainly is not the Foudroyant. •Mr. H. G. Hall, of Nireaha, Eketahuna, adds his testimony in a similar strain. Further evidence on the subject is supplied in Lord Nelson's autobiography. _ • In a passage quoted by Mahan lu his "Life of Nelson," Lord Nelson says: "In May (1799) I shifted my flag, berng. promoted to bo Rear-Ad-miral of the Red, to the Foudroyant, and was obliged to be on my guard against the. French fleet. ... On August. 9 (1799) I brought back His Sicilian 'Majesty to Palermo, having been upwards of four weeks on board the Foudroyant." Reference to Mahan .'shows, also, that Nelson had tho Foudroyant at Leghorn up to about June, 1800. _ It is thus clear that Nelson's flagship, th'e Foudroyant, was not | wrecked at Blackpool in 1797.