page_title: HMS Centaur (1797)
section_title: Service in the West Indies
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Centaur (1797) / Service in the West Indies
caption_attribution_description: English: During a July 1805 hurricane, a wave almost sends HMS St George (back) crashing into HMS Centaur.
context_page_description: HMS Centaur was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 March 1797 at Woolwich. She served as Sir Samuel Hood's flagship in the Leeward Islands and the Channel. During her 22-year career Centaur saw action in the Mediterranean, the Channel, the West Indies, and the Baltic, fighting the French, the Dutch, the Danes, and the Russians. She was broken up in 1819.
context_section_description: Late in 1802, Centaur sailed to the West Indies where she joined Vice Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth's squadron in Jamaica. When Commodore Sir Samuel Hood arrived to take command in the Leeward Islands, he raised his pennant in Centaur.
  On 26 June 1803 Centaur participated in the capture of Saint Lucia and its citadel, Morne Fortunée; three days later the expedition took Tobago from the French. The fleet went on to capture the Dutch islands.
  On 21 August 1803, Centaur and Netley captured the American ship Fame and her cargo of flour and corn. Then on 31 August Centaur detained the Dutch ship Good Hope, which was carrying wine and cordage.
  On 20 September the British seized Demerara. The corvette Hippomenes, which was acting as a guard ship at Fort Stabroek, where she looked after the Governor's maritime affairs and served as harbour master for visiting ships, was the only vessel belonging to the Batavian Republic there and was included in the terms of capitulation.  The British took her into service as HMS Hippomenes.
  In September Hood also received the assignment to blockade the bays of Fort Royal and Saint Pierre, Martinique. On 22 October Centaur captured the French privateer Vigilante. She was armed with two guns and had a crew of 37 men. The pursuit took seven hours.
  Centaur was sailing past Cap des Salinés, Martinique, early in the morning of 26 November when a battery fired at her. Hood had Maxwell anchor in Petite Anse d'Arlette. Then a landing party made up of Centaur's marines and about 40 sailors destroyed the battery. They also threw its six 24-pounders over the cliff.  The militia guarding the battery had a brass 2-pounder gun but fled without putting up any resistance even though the landing party had to climb a steep, narrow path. Unfortunately, the premature explosion of the battery's magazine cost Centaur one man killed, and three officers and six men wounded, the only casualties from the operation. Then Centaur discovered another battery, this one armed with two 42-pounders and a 32-pounder, between the Grande and Petite Anse d'Arlette. The French abandoned the battery when a landing party approached. Once again, Centaur's men threw the guns over the cliff and destroyed a barracks and the ammunition stored there.
  Centaur was anchored in Fort Royal Bay, Martinique, when on the morning of 1 December she sighted a schooner towing a sloop. The pair were about six miles away and Hood believed that they were on their way to St. Pierre. He therefore instructed Maxwell to take Centaur in pursuit. Their prey did not initially notice them, but when they did, the schooner let go her tow and the vessels separated. After a pursuit that extended over 24 leagues, Centaur captured the schooner. She turned out to be the privateer Ma Sophie, out of Guadeloupe. She had a crew of 46 men and had had eight guns that she had thrown overboard during the chase in an attempt to increase her speed. When Ma Sophie and the sloop separated, Centaur sent the Sarah, an advice boat, after the sloop, which she captured.
  Hood decided to use Sophie as a tender to Centaur. Lieutenant William Donnett became her captain with the task of monitoring the channel between Martinique and Diamond Rock, a basalt island south of Fort-de-France, the main port of Martinique, for enemy vessels. Subsequently, Donnett and Sophie frequently visited the Rock to gather both the thick, broad-leaved grass that the crew could weave into sailors' hats, and a spinach-like plant called callaloo. Callaloo, when boiled and served daily, kept the crews of Centaur and Sophie from scurvy and was a nice addition to a menu too long dominated by salt beef.
  In late 1803 and early 1804, Centaur, under Captain Murray Maxwell, established several batteries on Diamond Rock. To ease its administration vis-à-vis the Admiralty, The British commissioned the rock as HMS Diamond Rock. Hood garrisoned it with two lieutenants and 120 men under the command of Lieutenant James Wilkes Maurice, his first lieutenant. Unfortunately, at some point during this period and for an unknown rea
caption: Centaur nearly collides with St. George
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