HMS Forward (1855)
{{short description|Gunboat of the Royal Navy}}
{{other ships|HMS Forward}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2018}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=HMS Forward 1855-1870.jpg |Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=United Kingdom |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|naval}} |Ship name=Forward |Ship ordered= |Ship awarded= |Ship builder= W & H Pitcher |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=8 December 1855 |Ship christened= |Ship commissioned= |Ship recommissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship renamed= |Ship reclassified= |Ship refit= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship fate=Destroyed on 17 June 1870 in the Battle of Boca Teacapan }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption=(as built) |Ship class=Albacore-class |Ship displacement= |Ship length= |Ship beam= |Ship draught= |Ship power= |Ship propulsion= |Ship speed= |Ship range= |Ship complement= |Ship armament= }} |
HMS Forward was a British Albacore-class wooden screw gunboat launched in 1855 and sold in 1869. After her sale, Mexican pirates captured her, and boats from the United States Navy sloop-of-war {{USS|Mohican |1859|6}} destroyed her in the Battle of Boca Teacapan in 1870.
History
Forward was built by W & H Pitcher at Northfleet, Kent, England, and was launched on 8 December 1855. She was fitted for Royal Navy service in British Columbia in 1859 where she served along with her sister ship HMS Grappler. Together they were involved in the Lemalchi incident in the spring of 1863 when they hunted down and captured natives believed to have murdered some Gulf Island settlers. Forward used her guns to level a village on Kuper Island; she then transported her captives to Victoria where they were tried and hanged.{{Cite book |last=Arnett |first=Chris |title=The Terror of the Coast |publisher=Talonbooks |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-88922-318-9 |location=Vancouver |publication-date=1999}}{{Citation |last=James |first=Rick |title=West Coast Wrecks & Other Maritime Tales |place=Vancouver |publisher=Harbour Publishing |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-55017-545-5 |series=Raincoast Chronicles |volume=21}}{{rp|30}}
She was then sold off to Hill & Ready in Esquimault, British Columbia in 1869 for use as a commercial vessel. As a commercial vessel, she went south to Mexico for oysters and was seized near Mazatlan, Mexico, by a descendant of Christopher Columbus, Plácido Vega y Daza. Crewed by Mexicans, and flying the flag of San Salvador,{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Latest Shipping Intelligence |date=2 August 1870 |page=8 |issue=26718 |column=F }} she preyed on shipping and coastal settlements in the Gulf of California. The U.S. Navy considered her a pirate ship, and sent the sloop-of-war USS Mohican in pursuit of her. A launch and five cutters from Mohican discovered Forward beached in the Teacapan Estuary at Boca Teacapan, Sinaloa, Mexico, and destroyed her on 17 June 1870 in the Battle of Boca Teacapan.{{citation |title=America Spreads Her Sails: U.S. Seapower in the 19th Century |author-link=Willard H. Brownson |first=Willard |last=Brownson |publisher=Naval Institute Press |year=2015 |isbn=9781612519777 |chapter=The Pirate Ship Forward |pages=138–152}}
References
=Citations=
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- {{Cite Colledge2006}}
- {{winfield}}
{{Albacore class gunboat (1855)}}
{{Pirates}}
{{1870 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Albacore-class gunboats (1855)
Category:Victorian-era gunboats of the United Kingdom
Category:Maritime incidents in June 1870
Category:Ships built on the River Clyde
Category:Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
Category:Shipwrecks of the Mexican Pacific coast