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The Good Ship Taunton Castle by David Dawson

H.E.I.C. Ship Taunton Castle

The visitor to the County Museum might easily miss a fine portrait hanging above the fireplace, which faces you as you enter the Great Hall. It is not a portrait of a county notable, as are many of the other paintings hanging there, but of a ship - the contemporary label proclaims, "H.E.I.C. Ship Taunton Castle. Captain, James Urmston. Built by Mr. Bernard for Sir Benjamin Hammet 1790". Why was the portrait painted? How did an East Indiaman come to be so named? Who was Sir Benjamin Hammet and who was the artist? Before dashing off to look up the references, it always repays to have a good look at the object itself to see what it can tell. After all, it is to enable us to do just that that the museum preserves objects and their associated information in the first place. Note that this is a classic ship-portrait of the eighteenth/early nineteenth century. The artist has posed his subject so that she can be appreciated from more than one viewpoint within the one painting. The broadside view takes centre stage, but on the right is the view of the same vessel from astern. The stern view shows her approaching the coast flying the Union flag from her foremast - the commonly used, but unofficial, signal that she required the services of a pilot. In the broadside view, she has backed her foresail and foretopsail to heave to, presumably to pick up or drop the pilot. She is clearly a very substantial fully-rigged three-masted ship with two rows of gun ports and that beautiful feature of the large eighteenth

century ship, a towering gilded stern with an open gallery running under a coved arched transom. You might be forgiven for taking her for a Royal Navy fourth rate ship-of-the-line. Indeed, this was the impression that she was trying to give, especially to pirates who infested the Straits of Malacca and the South China seas. She had real teeth if it came to the need to use them. All-in-all she looks every inch one of the larger class of vessel that was being built towards the end of the eighteenth century specifically for the long return voyage from China carrying cargos of a very high value such as tea, silks and pearls. Ships like her were the plums of the British mercantile marine that enemy warships and privateers gave their all to capture when the long wars with France broke out in 1793. They were the pride of their owners who, if all went well, stood to earn substantial returns from such an investment. This is just the kind of portrait to be commissioned by an owner to express his pleasure in his new venture. Sure enough, the documentary evidence shows that this beautiful vessel of 1198 tons was commanded by Captain James Urmston, but only for her first voyage from 24th January 1791 to 26th July 1792, and that one of her principal owners was Sir Benjamin Hammet, a banker of Lombard Street, London. Hammet was also the Member of Parliament for Taunton and in 1786 had purchased the grant as bailiff and keeper of Taunton Castle in the names of his sons and his nephew, E. J. Esdaile. He lavished a deal of money on improving the fabric of the town, including creating Hammet Street and repairing and restoring the Castle. Hammet did not manage the ship. It was normal for the owners to appoint one of their number as a "shiphusband", and for that purpose Hammet's relative by marriage, Peter Esdaile was chosen. They were following the fashion of some other owners in naming their East Indiaman after their castle. Who was the artist from whom he commissioned this portrait? At the moment we do not know. Maybe a more detailed examination will reveal the signature. And the ship? She was a success. Following her first voyage to Bombay and China, she made eight further voyages between 1794 and 1812, for the Honourable East India Company, two more to Bombay and China, four direct to China, one to Bombay only, and her last to Madras and Bombay. And yes, her belligerent appearance was put to the test, spectacularly so, when she and four of her consorts were homeward bound in 1797. Whilst passing through the lombok Straits between the islands of Bali and Lombok (now in Indonesia) they ran into one of France's most powerful overseas squadrons, six frigates under the command of Rear Admiral Sercey. The frigates could easily have outsailed and outgunned the Indiaman. Bluff was the only defence available. The senior officer, Captain Charles Lennox of the Woodford, hoisted the Royal Navy command flag of the

Rear Admiral of the Blue and ordered his convoy to hoist the Blue Ensign and the Royal Navy pennant. To Sercey's scouting frigate, it appeared as though they had run into the British East India Squadron under Rear Admiral Rainier, an appearance confirmed when two of the British ships started to give chase! Sercey, an ocean away from his base in Ile de France (Mauritius), chose not to stay to contend with ships-of-the-line, but made good his escape. The author is most grateful for the assistance of Michael Melia of the National Maritime Museum and Ben Berry in assembling this article, which was first published in The Somerset magazine in January 1998.