HMS ''Jasper'' was a British ''Algerine''-class gunboat launched in 1857.

History

HMS ''Jasper'' was launched on 18 March 1857. It was commissioned on 28 July under Lieut. William Henry Pym and served in the North America and West Indies Station. Her notable actions included the capture of United States slave vessel ''Emilia'' (aka ''Marianna'') with off the north coast of Cuba on 22 March 1858. ''Emilia'' was towed to

Port Royal Port Royal is a village located at the end of the Palisadoes, at the mouth of Kingston Harbour, in southeastern Jamaica. Founded in 1494 by the Spanish, it was once the largest city in the Caribbean, functioning as the centre of shipping and co ...

by ''Jasper''. The capture of a US vessel ignited a diplomatic crisis between Great Britain and the United States, though it was later resolved when Great Britain agreed not to search US vessels. On 2 August 1862, ''Jasper'' was purchased by Horatio Nelson Lay, Inspector General of the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

Chinese Maritime Customs Service The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republ ...

, as part of an effort to bolster the

naval force in response to the ongoing

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted fr ...

. Thereafter she was renamed ''Amoy'' (), and became part of the Lay-Osborn Flotilla commanded by

Sherard Osborn Sherard Osborn (25 April 1822 – 6 May 1875) was a Royal Navy admiral and Arctic explorer. Biography Born in Madras, he was the son of an Indian army officer. Osborn entered the navy as a first-class volunteer in 1837, serving until 18 ...

. She was put under the command of Lieut. Arthur Salwey, and sailed for China in April 1863. Upon her arrival in

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

, the Qing government ordered the ship to be renamed as ''Kuang Wan'' (). Disagreements between the Qing government and Lay over the command and composition of the Lay-Osborn Flotilla led to its disbandment in 1863, and ''Amoy'' was taken to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

by Osborn, presumably for sale. There are conflicting accounts of her fate. She was possibly sold to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

on 30 December 1865, or to Captain Charles Stuart Forbes of '' Keangsoo''. One Chinese source indicated that it was eventually sold to

Satsuma Domain The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871. The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...

with ''Keangsoo''.

Citations

References

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jasper (1857) Algerine-class gunboats Victorian-era sloops of the United Kingdom 1857 ships Ships built by the Blackwall Yard Naval ships of Imperial China Naval ships of China Gunboats of China