HMS Curlew (1812)
1812 Cruizer-class brig-sloop
HMS Curlew (1812) was a Cruizer class brig-sloop built by (William) Good & Co., at Bridport for the Royal Navy and launched in 1812. She served with the Navy for only 10 years. During the War of 1812 she sailed from Halifax and captured several American privateers. Her greatest moment was her role in the 1819 British occupation of Ras Al Khaimah, leading to the signature of the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, which established the Trucial States, today the United Arab Emirates. Curlew was sold in 1822 in Bombay. She then had a 13 or so year career as an opium runner for James Matheson, one of the founders of the firm Jardine Matheson.
War of 1812
Commander Michael Head was appointed to Curlew on 27 June 1812 and commissioned her in July. She was still at Portsmouth on 31 July when the British authorities seized the American ships there and at Spithead on the outbreak of the War of 1812. She therefore shared, with numerous other vessels, in the subsequent prize money for these vessels: Belleville, Aeos, Janus, Ganges, and Leonidas.
Head sailed Curlew for North America on 28 August.
“HMS Curlew (1812)” enters the record as 1812 Cruizer-class brig-sloop. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Curlew, Cruizer-class and brig-sloop can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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