HMS Forward, 1855-1869
HMS
Forward was a 4 gun, British-screw steam-vessel that, according to
this despatch, was stationed on the Victoria and San Francisco route prior to 1860.
The owners of the Forward were hoping to obtain the mail contract between Victoria and San Francisco, but the
ship was withdrawn in 1860, due to its inability to compete with the Pacific Mail
Steam Ship Company.
It appears that, from
Romaine, William Govett to Rogers, Baron Blachford Frederic 16 November 1860, CO 60:9,
no. 10799, 28, and
another, the
Forward was converted to a gunboat.
Forward and its sister-ship,
Grappler, were converted for the sole purpose of duty on the Northwest coast and each had
a crew of 40 men. Throughout its time on the West Coast,
Forward undertook a variety of tasks, such as the transport of passengers and supplies, and
it acted as a police-force vessel.
The editor of Daily Evening Express was held captive in the Forward's lower deck and exposed to much verbal abuse for printing unflattering comments
about the conduct of Commander Lascelles and the crew of the Forward during a policing mission. After several hours, the Forward set out to sea and the editor escaped by jumping overboard, nearly drowning before
being picked up and dropped back on shore.
In 1869, the Forward was purchased for $7,000 by Millard and Beedy of Victoria and from there was sailed,
under the command of Captain Sutton, to San Francisco, where it was made again into
a gunboat, after which it became a pirate ship under a Salvadorian flag. As a privateer, it was commanded by the infamous captain “Viscayno”, who used it
to raid the city of Guayma and seize two ships, the San Pablo and the Colina. The Mexican government called in US and British ships to pursue the Forward and, eventually, this led to a full-blown gun-battle in the Teacapan River, which
ended with the Forward run aground, its engines broken to pieces, and the ship burned to the water's edge.
- 1. Forward, Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels.
- 2. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 202.
- 3. Ibid., 287.
- 4. Ibid.
- 5. E. W. Wright, ed., Lewis & Dryden's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest (Portland: The Lewis & Dryden Printing Company, 1895), 176. http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0222484
- 6. Ibid.
- 7. Ibid.