Talk:HMS Swallow (1745)

Images

Swallow on a 1956 stamp

Pitcairn stamp showing HMS Swallow

Philip Carteret and HMS Swallow at Pitcairn, 1767, from a 1967 stamp

I've tried to find images of the ship. I found a stamp, and there is also this image of Dolphin and Swallow (drawn by Samuel Wallis, published no later than 1968, should be public domain even in the US). I can try to make a higher resolution scan from the edition of Carteret's journals. But which of the ships is Dolphin and which one is Swallow? —Kusma (talk) 09:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I assume all of Wallis' images here show the Dolphin. A few of them are already in c:Category:Samuel Wallis. —Kusma (talk) 09:09, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Difficult to tell with the resolution. If I was to guess, I'd say that the right ship is Dolphin, but it would be a very weak guess. Perhaps a higher resolution image would help; if the drawing is accurate then one would be able to identify them from their number of gun ports. One might hope that there's a caption somewhere identifying them? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure the original sketch is accurate enough to count gun ports, and the caption doesn't tell me who is who. I'll try to ask the library that supposedly holds the drawing for further information. —Kusma (talk) 15:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

While in the process of writing my query, I finally found the original: https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/9WZMPOzY/NZMDGGrB8xk6g There doesn't seem to be any caption for it. —Kusma (talk) 16:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Those are some great drawings. I suppose if we know that the image of the two ships is certainly Dolphin and Swallow then it can be captioned and included as such, even if we don't know which is which. Annoying, though. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 16:58, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Helen Wallis, the editor of Carteret's journals, seems to have been certain. I've uploaded a crop and put it into the article. —Kusma (talk) 17:34, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you think it would be possible to crop the stamp picture so that it focuses more on the ship? Would probably be a better illustration of Swallow for the infobox image than the construction plans. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The resolution isn't high enough. Another stamp that could be used (anything British before 1969 is ok) is this Pitcairn one: [1] We could crop out the image of Carteret and the Swallow from that one. —Kusma (talk) 17:07, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Wow, if anything that's just a better image! I'm not sure if keeping Carteret is necessary because he's got at least one nice portrait available already, but I certainly agree that the crop would be worth doing. I would note that I'm useless at this kind of thing, and I'd be very grateful if you'd have a look at it..! Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't see a way to get just the ship out without actual work by someone who knows how to use their image manipulation program. So not me. See above for crop. —Kusma (talk) 17:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

That's great as-is, thank you! I've added it in. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

This shows the route Swallow took on her voyage and thus might be useful, but I'm not well versed enough with the route to say if it's totally correct. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll check at some point in the future. I have to finish some IRL stuff and answer to comments on a GAN, but then I'd like to insert Carteret's opinion that this was the worst ship in the Navy. And if you won't nominate this article for DYK, I will :) —Kusma (talk) 20:11, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll leave the DYK to you, I'm pretty terrible at that too. I've got some stuff to add about a partial mutiny in 1761 which might be vaguely interesting, though. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 20:18, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Did the DYK nom. Sorry about mixing {{sfn}}'s into your {{sfnp}}'s, should have paid more attention. —Kusma (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 11:55, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Dolphin and Swallow drawn by Samuel Wallis

• ... that Pitcairn was named after the midshipman on HMS Swallow who first spotted the island? Source: Clowes, The Royal Navy, p. 122
  • ALT1: ... that although Philip Carteret described HMS Swallow as "one of the worst .. in his majesty's Navy", he completed a circumnavigation with the ship? Source: Wallis 1965, p. 106 for the quote; various for the completed circumnavigation
  • ALT2: ... that HMS Swallow was meant to accompany HMS Dolphin (both ships pictured) on her circumnavigation, but the ships were separated after passing the Strait of Magellan? Source: Clowes pp. 120–121
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Grant Robert Sutherland

Created by Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk). Nominated by Kusma (talk) at 22:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC).

• This substantial and well-written article is new enough and long enough. The image is in the public domain, the hook facts are cited inline (I like the original hook), the article is neutral, and I detected no copyright issues. A QPQ has been done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:50, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

ALT0 to T:DYK/P2 without image

A few notes and source links

• Book review of the edition of Carteret's journals, including some overview of the voyage: [2] Also quite critical of Helen Wallis.
• Pacific Place Names and the History of Discovery: mentions that some(?) of the Santa Cruz Islands are called "Swallow Island(s)" Author was unable to find where the Carteret Islands are, though. Seems he did not have access to Wikipedia.

  Swallow Islands are now called Reef Islands and "Swallow Island" is Matema Island (a rather underdeveloped article like most of our Solomon Islands content): [3]

There is probably enough material to write a separate article about Carteret's circumnavigation, but one thing at a time. —Kusma (talk) 14:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm intending to expand coverage of the journey using this history of circumnavigations, which seems to provide a good overview of the expedition, and the thoughts and circumstances behind it. Wallis and Carteret were clearly not on good terms for most of their time together, and the disharmony present on the voyage should certainly be noted! Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:54, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Certainly. It seems to be that Carteret had more relevant experience, yet was given the far inferior ship, crew and provisions, and then achieved far more than Wallis. And then both were completely overshadowed by Cook.

If you need me to check anything in Carteret's (or Robertson's) journals, let me know, happy to search for confirmations (or juicy quotes). I'll try to write more about the story from the publishing end (An Account of the Voyages) for the moment. —Kusma (talk) 16:37, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Have written up what Wilson has to say on the expedition prior to them reaching the Pacific. If you have anything that might improve what I've included please do add it! I hope to write up the rest of Wilson tomorrow, which will hopefully mean a much more detailed account of the expedition for you to attack! Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I realise I've managed to completely ignore the presence of the store ship Prince Frederick for the first part of the journey, and will add her part in tomorrow as well. Not sure whether or not this ship and HMS Prince Frederick are one and the same, however. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:51, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma: Have very belatedly finished off the exploration part of the article - can only apologise that it took me so long to get back to! Do you think there's anything else that needs adding or addressing in more detail? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 18:07, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Pickersgill-Cunliffe, I think you have most of the important points about the voyage (more detail like all the islands seen (some more here) should probably be in an article about the circumnavigation, not the ship). You could say something about Carteret meeting his colleague Louis Antoine de Bougainville, though, who had come to Tahiti just after Wallis did, and made some remarks about Swallow when he and Carteret met. Bougainville wrote "Son navire étoit fort petit, marchoit très-mal , & quand nous eûmes pris congé de lui nous le laissâmes comme à l’ancre. Combien il a dû souffrir dans une aussi mauvaise embarcation !" [4] or, in Johann Reinhold Forster's (more probably Georg Forster's, actually) English translation, "His ship was very small, went very ill, and when we took leave of him, he remained as it were at anchor. How much he must have suffered in so bad a vessel, may well be conceived." [5] —Kusma (talk) 21:15, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

And there's absolutely no need to apologise. I haven't kept my promises to write about Hawkesworth's book either (allowed myself to be distracted by a couple of other fun things). I am very happy that we have so much more about the ship and the circumnavigation now. —Kusma (talk) 21:18, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

@Kusma: Thanks, I'll add the Bougainville meeting soon - I had read about it, but for some reason the significance didn't hit me. What a great quote! Hoping to put this up for GAN after I've done that and maybe expanded on a few earlier details. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

You could also consider some "legacy" like the island names I mentioned above or the publication of Carteret's journal in An Account of the Voyages (there are likely more complaints by Carteret about Swallow and the Admiralty in that book). For GA, you should probably expand the content about the circumnavigation in the lead section to a full paragraph. —Kusma (talk) 11:40, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:HMS Swallow (1745)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 16:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh, a ship! I'll get to this in the next few days. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:07, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

• Lead:
  • "In 1755 Swallow joined the Downs Station," may want to point out that this returned her to home waters
    •  Done
• Design:
  • A quick explanation of what a sloop is for the non expert?
    • Replying to all the requests for ship explanations here. I think it better to allow people who want to know more to just click on the links. A quick explanation wouldn't provide enough to really be very useful in my mind, unless you want me to just call sloops, snows, and ship-sloops all "small warships" or the like! If you think differently I would appreciate any suggestions, of course
  • "10-gun vessels, they were actually built with seven" the MOS is ... tricky ... here. Generally, when describing/contrasting a series of numbers - we either use all numerals or all ordinals. I'm not sure which would be better here - and while strictly speaking this level of adherence to the MOS isn't required for GA, it isn't a bad idea to try to adhere to this particular part of the MOS - it is a common rule for writing.
    • seven -> 7
  • A quick explanation of what a snow is for the non expert?
    • See previous comment
  • "The sloops were the largest single-design class of ship procured by the Royal Navy, and continued to be so until the advent of the Swan-class ship-sloop in the 1770s." I think you mean "The sloops were the largest single-design class of ship of Royal Navy when they were procured, and continued to be so until the advent of the Swan-class ship-sloop in the 1770s."?
    •  Done
  • A quick explanation of what a ship-sloop is for the non expert? And what exactly did this refit entail?
    • See previous comment for ship explanation. The major change was the addition of a third mast, which is described in text
• East Indies:
  • "As part of the squadron of Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen Swallow sailed from the Cape of Good Hope on 8 May; the squadron reached Mauritius, with the intention of capturing it from the French, on 23 June." May I suggest that we put why the squadron sailed in the first part of this sentence - perhaps "Intending to capture Mauritius from the French, Rear-Admiral Edward Boscawen sailed with his squadron, Swallow included, from the Cape of Good Hope on 8 May and reached its destination on 23 June."
    •  Done
  • "The 60-gun fourth-rate HMS Pembroke was then sent to give covering fire to Swallow and the 44-gun frigate HMS Eltham as they sailed along the coast with some engineers on board." Do we really need the "fourth-rate" here? or the "with some engineers on board."? We should attempt to avoid too much extraneous detail as we're discussing a specific ship. Unless the number of guns is important for later events, we can probably lose those too - perhaps "The ship-of-the-line HMS Pembroke was then sent to give covering fire to Swallow and the frigate HMS Eltham as they sailed along the coast."?
    • Removed the engineers part. I would keep "fourth-rate" rather than use "ship of the line" here because they were more often than not grouped separately to the other ships of the line - while a second rate and a third rate might reasonably by called "two ships of the line", if they had a fourth rate in company it is more likely the description would become "two ships of the line and a fourth rate" rather than "three ships of the line".

While I am not going to die on a hill to save my use of gun numbers in articles, I will at least make one attempt to argue the point. I am of the mind that including the number of guns assists the reader in understanding just what type and size a ship they are reading about is. If I simply call a ship "the frigate" then that could be anything between a 580 ton 26-gun frigate and a 1200 ton 44-gun frigate. Adding the number of guns a ship held is in my mind a simple way to pretty accurately illustrate important differences between similar types of vessel. What do you think?

• • "and the 50-gun fourth-rate HMS Chester to join the 58-gun fourth-rate Exeter off Pondicherry on 3 August" again, the details of each ship are just distracting from the important parts about the subject of the article.
    • See previous comment
  • quick explanation for "paid off" "in ordinary" - it's usually good to give a quick definition in your article for unfamiliar terms as this prevents the loss of readers to another article
    • Have attempted explanations, do they work?
  • "This work cost £3,370.2.1d" I think we can just say "over 3300" and avoid the exact precision - we're an encyclopedia not a book-length history of the ship
    • Went with 3,370 as hopefully an agreeable compromise
  • Say where the Downs station was based/patrolled?
    • I would feel a little silly saying that "The Downs Station was based in the Downs", and it has already been added that the station was at home for what it is worth
• Downs:
  • "joined the Western Squadron." as above - where was this located?
    • They served pretty widely so I've added that it was based in Plymouth
  • "company with the 28-gun frigate HMS Aquilon" You know what I'm going to say ...
    • See previous comment
  • "captured the letter of marque Le Tigre" - this makes no sense to a non-expert. I think you mean "captured the Le Tigre which was sailing with a letter of marque" but...
    • Ships sailing under a letter of marque are routinely called letters of marque themselves. E.g. the London Gazette referenced uses "Letter of Marque Sloop from Martinico", while Winfield records "Letter of Marque Le Tigre 12.2.1761".
  • "Le Tigre had sailed from Martinique and had on board a cargo of cocoa, elephants teeth, coffee, and caffia." Utterly unneeded details for an encyclopedia article.
    • Removed
  • "captured the 10-gun privateer snow Le Sultan off Bayonne on 28 February after a chase of twenty-six hours."
    • Removed the twenty-six hours part. I don't see how denoting the type of ship is too much information
  • "discovered that they had been encouraged in their actions by Swallow's boatswain." so ... why would this not mean the boatswain should have been executed or at least punished?
    • One would hope so! The source does not say, however: "Croall and Fineran were sentenced to hang but it was not carried out when it emerged that the boatswain had played a part in encouraging them." If I were to guess, I would say that the boatswain was one of the other four brought to court martial, but he did not actually mutiny himself, only encouraging others, and thus could not be punished as severely as the true mutineers. But that's just a theory!
• "The ship was surveyed on 17 August and subsequently received a small repair at Chatham Dockyard between February and August 1766" - she can't "subsequently" have received something after February to August 1766 if the date of the first event was 17 August 1766.
  • The 17 August refers to the previously mentioned year, which in 1763. I've repeated it to make it more obvious.
  • "at the cost of £3,915.1.6d" - again "over 3900" would work fine and avoid too much detail.
    • Shake at 3,915?!
  • You link to "Pacific Sea" - but that's a 1947 collection of poems. Did you mean "Pacific Ocean"?
    • Erm..maybe the navy just really wanted to know more about poetry? I suppose I'll change it..!
  • "was setting out to better John Byron's earlier attempt" better it how? This doesn't make any sense - "better an attempt" usually means trying to improve some sort of record/outcome - but exploring expeditions usually "expand upon" earlier explorations
    • I've clarified a little. Byron literally discovered nothing on his expedition, so the navy were sending out another expedition to actually find something!
  • "where they recorded the height of the native Patagonians." seems an odd detail to include - did they do other exploring/research?
    • This was the major thing they did before starting their passage through the strait - it is mentioned in most histories of the expedition that I've read.
  • "Having spent ten days of the voyage, of which some Swallow was only able to move with the aid of her small boats towing her, the ships began a refit at Port Famine on 27 December." this is unclear - did you mean "After ten days, with Swallow often having to be towed by her small boats, the ships reached Port Famine on 27 December and began a refit."?
    •  Done
• Return:
  • Do we know who she sold to or what happened after that?
    • Not recorded in my sources. Usually such small vessels as Swallow would be bought by civilians and either broken up at a profit or turned into merchant ships. Occasionally they were used as privateers, but I doubt such a bad ship as Swallow would have been bought for such a purpose. Pinging @Acad Ronin: here in the knowledge that if anyone might know what happened to Swallow after her sale, it'll be them.
• I did do some copyediting, please make sure I didn't introduce errors or mangle things.
• I randomly googled three phrases and only turned up Wikipedia mirrors. Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@Ealdgyth: Hi, thank for another very thorough review and helpful copy edits. I believe I have responded to all your comments above. I realise that I've refuted more points than I usually would in a GAN, for which I apologise. This isn't a competition I'm trying to "win", so if you still think I'm wrong on anything please say so! Thanks again for all your hard work. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

It's all good. A lot of what I bring up is suggestions. I'm not going to fail an article because we disagree on whether something this tiny is in or not. Passing now! Ealdgyth (talk) 12:17, 11 April 2022 (UTC)