HMS ''Hussar'' was a

sixth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...

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 ...

of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, built in England in 1761–63. She was a 28-gun ship of the , designed by Sir

Thomas Slade Sir Thomas Slade (1703/4–1771) was an English naval architect, most famous for designing HMS ''Victory'', Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Early life He was the son of Arthur Slade (1682–1746) and his wife Hannah ...

. She was wrecked at New York in 1780. In early 2013, a cannon from ''Hussar'' was discovered stored in a building in New York's Central Park still loaded with live gunpowder and shot.

Career

''Hussar'' was commissioned in August 1763 under Captain James Smith, and sent for her commission cruising in the vicinity of Cape Clear. By 1767 she was commanded by Captain Hyde Parker. She continued to serve off North America between 1768 and 1771, before paying off into ordinary in March 1771. After being repaired and refitted at Woolwich from 1774 to 1777, she recommissioned in July 1777 under Captain Elliott Salter. In later life, she was part of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

fleet in North America. During the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

, ''Hussar'' carried dispatches on the North American station. ''Hussar'' captured the Spanish

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

''Nuestra Señora del Buen Confeso'' (armed

en flute En or EN may refer to: Businesses * Bouygues (stock symbol EN) * Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway (reporting mark EN, but now known as Southern Railway of Vancouver Island) * Euronews, a news television and internet channel Language and writing * ...

), on 20 November 1779. By mid-1780, the British position in New York was precarious as a French army had joined forces with General

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...

's troops north of the city.

Loss

When Admiral Sir

George Brydges Rodney Admiral George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, KB ( bap. 13 February 1718 – 24 May 1792), was a British naval officer. He is best known for his commands in the American War of Independence, particularly his victory over the French at the ...

took his twenty ships of the line south in November, it was decided that the army's payroll be moved to the anchorage at

Gardiners Bay Gardiners Bay is a small arm of the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 10 mi (16 km) long and 8 mi (13 km) wide in the U.S. state of New York between the two flukelike peninsulas at the eastern end of Long Island. It is bounded o ...

on eastern

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

. On 23 November 1780, against his pilot's better judgment, ''Hussar''s captain, Charles Pole, decided to sail from the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

through the treacherous waters of

Hell Gate Hell Gate is a narrow tidal strait in the East River in New York City. It separates Astoria, Queens, from Randall's and Wards Islands. Etymology The name "Hell Gate" is a corruption of the Dutch phrase ''Hellegat'' (it first appeared on ...

between

Randall's Island Randalls Island (sometimes called Randall's Island) and Wards Island are conjoined islands, collectively called Randalls and Wards Islands, in New York County, New York City,

and

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

(on

). Just before reaching

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

, ''Hussar'' was swept onto Pot Rock and began sinking. Pole was unable to run her aground and she sank in of water. The minutes of the Royal Navy's court martial into the loss of the frigate (record held at the ''National Maritime Museum'', Greenwich), make no mention of any payroll money or other special cargo aboard. The document appears to be little more than an administrative formality. It suggests that whatever valuables were aboard ''Hussar'' had been off-loaded by the time of her accident.

Salvage attempts

Although the British immediately denied there was any gold aboard the ship, and despite the difficulty of diving in the waters of Hell Gate, reports of $2 to $4 million in gold were the catalyst that prompted many salvage efforts over the next 150 years. This continued even after the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

eased the passage through the East River by blowing "the worst features of Hell Gate straight back to hell" with of

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germa ...

in 1876. ''Hussar''s remains, if any survive, are now believed to lie beneath

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. On 11 January 2013, preservationists with the Central Park Conservancy in New York were removing rust from a cannon from ''Hussar'' when they discovered it still contained gunpowder, wadding, and a cannonball. Police were called and bomb disposal staff eventually removed about 1.8 pounds of active black gunpowder from the cannon, which they disposed of at a gun range. "We silenced British cannon fire in 1776 and we don't want to hear it again in Central Park," the

New York Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

said in a statement.

In popular culture

Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many ...

's 2017 science fiction novel ''

New York 2140 ''New York 2140'' is a 2017 climate fiction novel by American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. The novel is set in a New York City that has been flooded and altered by rising water. The novel received generally positive reviews. Setti ...

'', a sub-plot centers on an attempt to recover two chests with gold from the wreck of HMS ''Hussar'' that lies buried under a submerged parking lot in the former Bronx.

Citations and references

Citations References * Gardiner, Robert (1992) ''The First Frigates''. (London: Conway Maritime Press). * * Hu, Winnie. "Finding Trash and Worse, but So Far, No Sunken Treasure," ''New York Times'', 4 Sep 2013, p. A17 * Lyon, David (1993) ''The Sailing Navy List'' (London: Conway Maritime Press). * Rattray. ''Perils of the Port of New York''. *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hussar (1763) Shipwrecks of the East River Shipwrecks of the New York (state) coast Maritime incidents in 1780 1763 ships Sixth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy Ships built in Rotherhithe