Sloop 14 (3m).
L/B:
92 × 26.5 (28m × 8.1m). Tons:
278 bm. Hull:
wood. Comp.:
86. Arm.:
14 × 6pdr. Built:
Rotherhithe, Eng.; 1745.
HMS Swallow spent her first twenty years' service lying in ordinary in the Medway. Surveyed in 1763, she was found in need of repairs, which were only carried out when it was decided that she sail as a consort to
HMS Dolphin on that ship's second circumnavigation, under Captain Samuel Wallis. The ship was small and much slower than the copper-bottomed Dolphin, and Commander Philip Carteret described his new command as "a miserable tool" and "one of the worst if not the very worst of her kind; in his majesty's Navy." The ships left Plymouth on August 21, 1766. Swallow's dull handling made progress down the Atlantic slow going, and she barely survived the agonizing four-month transit of the Strait of Magellan. As the two ships entered the Pacific on April 11, 1767, Dolphin vanished from sight, leaving Carteret and Swallow to carry on alone.
Contending with unseasonable gales, Carteret made first for the Juan Fernández Islands and then sailed west in latitude 28°S, "in as high, if not higher South latitude then Any men, before which have gon across this Ocean." In about 130°W longitude, Carteret headed north and on July 2 discovered an island that was named for Midshipman Robert Pitcairn. (Three decades later, the uninhabited island, "scarce better than a large rock," would shelter the
Bounty mutineers.) Heading west in about 10°S, Carteret hoped to find Alvaro Mendaña's Solomon Islands, but running short of water, he gave up and continued west until coming to Egmont Island (named for the First Lord of the Admiralty) in the group he called the Queen Charlotte Islands. Only later did he realize that Egmont was the Santa Cruz Island of Mendaña and Pedro Fernández de Quirós's voyage in
San Jerónimo in 1595. Unfortunately, eight of Swallow's crew were wounded in a skirmish with the islanders, and four later died, including the master.
Although he had hoped to turn south to explore the eastern part of New Holland (Australia), with scurvy debilitating his crew Carteret was forced northwest. On August 20, Swallow was off Gower's, Carteret's, and Simpson's Islands, which he all but ignored, little realizing that they comprise the northern limit of the Solomon Islands. On August 26, Swallow came to New Britain where Carteret's crew was refreshed and the ship repaired, and which Carteret claimed for England. Sailing again on September 7, they passed through St. George Channel, identified by Carteret as a strait between New Britain and New Ireland and not a gulf as previously believed. Swallow reached the Dutch settlement at Macassar on December 27, 1767, and she remained there until the following May when favorable winds allowed for the passage to Batavia. After repairs to the ship, she sailed for England in September, stopping at Table Bay from November 28 to January 6, 1769. Three weeks north of Ascension Island, Swallow was hailed by the French ship
La Boudeuse, under Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who was returning from his own expedition, and, having followed in Swallow's wake since New Ireland, was well acquainted with Carteret's voyage. Bougainville's appreciation for Carteret was heartfelt, and as he sailed away he wrote, "His ship was very small, went very ill, and when we took leave of him, he remained as it were at anchor. How much he must have suffered in so bad a vessel may well be conceived."
Swallow finally straggled into Spithead on March 20, 1769, after a voyage whose results could be attributed only to Carteret's determination. Swallow had more than outlived her usefulness, and as she was "a leeward sloop, and bad sailor, merchant built and 24 years of age," she was sold on June 20.
Wallis, Carteret's Voyage round the World.
