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Siege Of Pondicherry (1778)
The siege of Pondicherry was the first military action on the Indian subcontinent following the declaration of war between Great Britain and France in the American Revolutionary War. A British force besieged the French-controlled port of Pondicherry (now Puducherry) in August 1778, which capitulated after ten weeks of siege. Background Following the colonial victory at Saratoga in October 1777, France decided to declare war on Great Britain as an ally to the United States. Word first reached the French Indian colony of Pondicherry in July 1778 that France and Britain had recalled their ambassadors, a sign that war was imminent. The British colonies had already received orders to seize the French possessions in India and begun military preparations. French defenses Pondicherry was the capital of French India and the largest of France's possessions on the subcontinent. The British would capture all of the other possessions without resistance in 1778; only Pondicherry was ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of the United States, fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by the Kingdom of France and, to a lesser extent, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire, in a conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. Established by royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries, the American colonies were largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain and its Caribbean colonies, as well as other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. After British victory over the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions between the motherland and he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Battery
In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships. Land usage Historically the term "battery" referred to a cluster of cannon in action as a group, either in a temporary field position during a battle or at the siege of a fortress or a city. Such batteries could be a mixture of cannon, howitzer, or mortar types. A siege could involve many batteries at different sites around the besieged place. The term also came to be used for a group of cannon in a fixed fortification, for coastal or frontier defence. During the 18th century "battery" began to be used as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swivel Gun
The term swivel gun (or simply swivel) usually refers to a small cannon, mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to switch between rifled and smoothbore barrels. Swivel guns should not be confused with pivot guns, which were far larger weapons mounted on a horizontal pivot, or screw guns, which are a mountain gun with a segmented barrel. An older term for the type is peterero (alternative spellings include "paterero" and "pederero"). The name was taken from the Spanish name for the gun, pedrero, a combination of the word piedra (stone) and the suffix -ero (-er), because stone was the first type of ammunition fired. Configuration Swivel guns are among the smallest types of cannon, typically measuring less than in length and with a bore diameter of up to . They can fire a variety o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sailing Frigate
A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuverability, intended to be used in scouting, escort and patrol roles. The term was applied loosely to ships varying greatly in design. In the second quarter of the 18th century, the 'true frigate' was developed in France. This type of vessel was characterised by possessing only one armed deck, with an unarmed deck below it used for berthing the crew. Late in the 19th century (British and French prototypes were constructed in 1858), armoured frigates were developed as powerful ironclad warships, the term frigate was used because of their single gun deck. Later developments in ironclad ships rendered the frigate designation obsolete and the term fell out of favour. During the Second World War the name 'frigate' was reintroduced to des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fifth-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal Navy as originally devised had just four rates, but early in the reign of Charles I, the original fourth rate (derived from the "Small Ships" category under his father, James I) was divided into new classifications of fourth, fifth, and sixth rates. While a fourth-rate ship was defined as a ship of the line, fifth and the smaller sixth-rate ships were never included among ships-of-the-line. Nevertheless, during the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century, fifth rates often found themselves involved among the battle fleet in major actions. Structurally, these were two-deckers, with a complete battery on the lower deck, and fewer guns on the upper deck (below the forecastle and quarter decks, usually with no guns in the waist on this deck). The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madras
Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian census, Chennai is the sixth-most populous city in the country and forms the fourth-most populous urban agglomeration. The Greater Chennai Corporation is the civic body responsible for the city; it is the oldest city corporation of India, established in 1688—the second oldest in the world after London. The city of Chennai is coterminous with Chennai district, which together with the adjoining suburbs constitutes the Chennai Metropolitan Area, the List of urban areas by population, 36th-largest urban area in the world by population and one of the largest metropolitan economies of India. The traditional and de facto gateway of South India, Chennai is among the most-visited Indian cities by f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritius
Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Agaléga and St. Brandon. The islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, along with nearby Réunion (a French overseas department), are part of the Mascarene Islands. The main island of Mauritius, where most of the population is concentrated, hosts the capital and largest city, Port Louis. The country spans and has an exclusive economic zone covering . Arab sailors were the first to discover the uninhabited island, around 975, and they called it ''Dina Arobi''. The earliest discovery was in 1507 by Portuguese sailors, who otherwise took little interest in the islands. The Dutch took possession in 1598, establishing a succession of short-lived settlements over a period of about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Frigate Brisson (1767)
''Brisson'' was a 22-gun corvette of the French Navy. Career ''Brisson'' was built as a fluyt for the Mississippi Company The Mississippi Company (french: Compagnie du Mississippi; founded 1684, named the Company of the West from 1717, and the Company of the Indies from 1719) was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and th .... She became property of the Crown on 8 December 1769 with the liquidation of the Company, and commissioned as a light frigate. She was sold to the commerce circa September 1771. She returned to the service of the Crown when the French requisitioned in July 1778 for the defence of Pondicherry. She was captured by the British at Pondicherry in September 1778. Notes, citations, and references Notes Citations References * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brisson (1767) Frigates of the French Navy 1767 ships ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Corvette Lawriston (1778)
''Lawriston'' was a 22-gun corvette of the French Navy. Career Originally a ship of the French East India Company, ''Lawriston'' was brought into service in the French Navy. She took part in the Siege of Pondicherry in 1778. She was returned to merchant service in June 1781 at Île de France but again requisitioned in December 1781. HMS ''Isis''Cunat, p.110 captured her on 16 February 1782, during the prelude of the Battle of Sadras The Battle of Sadras was the first of five largely indecisive naval battles fought between a British fleet (under Admiral Sir Edward Hughes) and a French fleet (under Admiral Pierre Suffren) off the east coast of India during the Anglo-French .... ''Lawriston'' was carrying a large part of the field artillery for the French army in the Indian Ocean, as well as two companies of the Légion de Lauzun. Her captain had decided to pray on small merchantmen, and failed to escape in time when the British appeared.Cunat, p.121 Citations Referen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Corvette Sartine (1778)
HMS ''Sartine'' was a French merchant vessel from Bordeaux. The French Navy pressed her into service on 3 August 1778 to assist in the defense of Pondichéry. The British captured her during the Siege of Pondicherry (1778), and took her into service under her existing name. HMS ''Sartine'' foundered in action off Calicut in November 1780. Career In 1775 the shipowner Jacques-Alexandre Laffon de Ladebat (1719–97) decided to finance an expedition to the East Indies in order to take advantage of the opportunity presented by a relaxation of the monopoly on the trade hitherto awarded to the French East India Company at Lorient. He commissioned the construction of a vessel in 1775, the ''Sartine'' which left France on 19 September 1776 with instructions to sell her cargo on the Malabar coast, pick up a cargo for China, there pick up a cargo of silks and other textiles for France, and return in 1778. ''Sartine'' reached Colombo on 2 February 1777. From there she sailed to Cochin, Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Frigate Pourvoyeuse (1772)
The ''Pourvoyeuse'' was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She is notable as one of the earliest attempts at building a frigate armed with 24-pounders on the artillery deck, rather than the 18-pounders typical of the day. Career Launched at Lorient in November 1772, ''Pourvoyeuse'' was completed during the following year. During the American Revolutionary War, she took part in the Indian campaign of the naval operations, notable in the Siege of Pondicherry. At the outbreak of the war, ''Pourvoyeuse'', under Captain Saint-Orens, constituted the brunt of the French naval forces at Pondicherry, along with the 64-gun , under Captain François-Jean-Baptiste l'Ollivier de Tronjoli, whose departure for France had been delayed in response to the British preparations for war. On 21 February 1779, under Captain de Tromelin,Unienville (2004), p.260. she captured the East Indiaman .Roche indicates 21 February 1778 for the date of the capture of the ''Os ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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