Brigantine Ahoy!: Schooner Days MCXL (1140)

by C. H. J. Snider

TWO HUNDRED and seventy-six years after Father Hennepin's "barque or brigantine" Frontenac from Cataraqui picked up a cargo of parched corn in Toronto, another brigantine is being fabricated where the first Frontenac was built.

"Fabricated" is used because as we hear from Brigantine Limited or Brigantine Inc. at Kingston, the 1954 craft will be of steel, and have auxiliary power. Her draught shows two square sails on the foremast and a fore-and-aft mainsail and topsail, and of course jibs and staysails. She is to be used, we understand, as a school ship or cruise ship this coming summer. We wish her luck.

Before leaving the Cataraqui finds of yester month for something more modern, let us consider another brigantine as a possible candidate for recognition as the owner of the ship's prow or forefoot rescued intact by the prompt action of Ronald Way, Director of Fort Henry Museum.

This fragment was all that could be saved of the buried French ship which was in the way of the concrete piers for the new Defense College—a pointed mass of stem, keelson and cant-frames, 8 ft. in length spreading out to 14 ft. width.

The craft so cut short could be traced back for 40 ft., where her sides were 20 ft. apart. This could indicate a vessel of 60 ft. keel, 21 ft. beam, 7 ft. depth of hold and 160 tons burthen — which happen to be the known dimensions of a new brigantine, not yet fully armed or manned, captured by the French when they took Oswego from the British in 1756. The same dimensions could, of course, with little paring, fit the French armed schooner Huralt, which was burned at Kingston along with the captive craft, when Bradstreet's counterstroke reduced the French Fort Frontenac to ruin in 1758, just 25 months after the Oswego disaster.

Capitaine Labroquerie included this prize from Oswego in his graphic map of 1757, showing her in the "Flotte Angloisses," although when he made the map she was in the French transport service, as she was when she was burned. The name he wrote over her was "Le jeorge," meaning the George. This may have been the name the French gave her, either triumph over King George III, who had lost her, or because they thought that was her English name.

There is confusion as to what her English name really was. The first little rowing schooner built at Oswego was called the George, in honor of the monarch, and it may have been intended to transfer that name to this more pretentious flagship. The new fortification built at Oswego that year was called Fort George by authority—and Fort Rascal by the New Englanders who had to garrison it. They could not shoot off their guns unless they opened the gates, which left them, as Montcalm wrote, "exposed to their shoebuckles."

The new Oswego brigantine is known to historians as the London. There was no particular reason for this name. It may be a mistake in deciphering a handwritten record. London and Loudon look alike in hand-of-write. The Scotch Earl of Loudon was the newly appointed Commander-in-chief in America, and Capt. Miss-the-boat Loring, who had been appointed to command of the new ship, was as zealous a worshipper of the rising sun as other underlings. Loring was so late reaching New York, and lingered there so long hunting seamen for his Oswego command, that neither he nor his driblets of crew ever saw the ship. She was carried off by the French before he or the driblets reached the ruins of Oswego. At least they escaped capture.

We have by chance also the Admiralty spar dimensions of this luckless flagship. Her foremast was 50 ft. from heel to cap, foretopmast 32 ft., fore topgallantmast 15 ft, foreyard 42 ft, foretopsail yard 32 ft., fore topgallant yard 21 ft. Mainmast dimensions, though not given, probably 60 ft., with 30 ft. topmast. Mainboom was 54 ft., crossjack yard 30 ft, maintopsail yard 26 ft. — she had a square topsail on her mainmast, with one line of reefpoints. Her bowsprit was 38 ft., extended by a 28 ft. jibboom, with a 30 ft. spritsail yard crossed below it.

The dimensions correspond to the proportions of the rig shown for her in Labroquerie's drawing of "Le jeorge"—even to the 30 ft. spritsail yard spreading a loosefooted sail like a curtain under the long high-steeved nose-pole.

The drawing indicates a figurehead—perhaps the Earl of Loudon on whom the compliment was wasted,—and a high-charged stern, surmounted by a large red ensign on a staff. This would have to be unshipped each time the mainboom came over.

At the maintopmast head is a smaller ensign with white cross of St. George prominent. She flies a bordered burgee at the fore, and her mastheads and jibboom ends have the curious red globes which suggest lanterns. Her sides were painted yellow, with three black strakes. Her bottom was probably whitened with lime and tallow.

"Le jeorge" is the only 18th century brigantine on the lakes, of which we have an authentic contemporary picture. It has been suggested that she may have been renamed L'Huron by the French.

THE GEORGE, LONDON, LOUDON, OR L'HURON, as Labroquerie drew her. Her timbers may be under the new Defense College at Kingston.