HMS Pylades, 1854-1875
HMS Pylades was a Royal Navy screw-driven corvette-class vessel, which carried 21 guns.1 It was built in 1854, at Sheerness dockyard; thereafter, it was launched into the Baltic Sea, to fight in the Crimean War.2 Pylades served two commissions on the coast as part of a navy contingent sent to buttress British gold-claims in the 1850s.3
It arrived, along with HMS Tribune, at Esquimalt Harbour, in 1859 with a crew of “supernumerary marines”, who were to assist the Royal Engineers until such time as needed for military defense.4
In this despatch, Douglas notes the arrival of Pylades and its fighting crew, and professes much satisfaction in having so effective a force available in case of Emergency.
  • 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 482.
  • 2. Ibid.
  • 3. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 154.
  • 4. Ibid.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents