How Two Battles Won, A Leak Finally Drowned the Ganges
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How Two Battles Won, A Leak Finally Drowned the Ganges
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Summary
A single merchant ship that once repelled a French squadron vanished beneath the South Atlantic at thirty-eight degrees south latitude - and not a single person aboard her died; how did the East Indiaman Ganges survive two armed encounters only to be undone by a quiet leak far from home? What hidden decisions and seamanship shaped a fate that began with cannon and ended with water?
In this episode, we tell the story of the Ganges from her role in East India Company commerce to the dramatic convoy bluff that turned merchants into a ghost fleet, and we follow the voyage that should have been routine but concluded with her sinking - what misstep allowed water to win where guns had not?
Person: Captain Garnault
Event: Battle with Rear Admiral Charles-Alexandre Linois
Date: February 1804
Location: near Pulo Auro, South China Sea / final position at 38° S latitude
Case: Carried soldiers of the Seventy-Seventh Regiment of Foot
- The Ganges was valued at one hundred and twenty-six thousand six hundred and fourteen pounds.
- The convoy that faced Linois consisted of more than thirty East Indiamen under Commodore Nathaniel Dance.
- Rear Admiral Linois misreported the convoy as being defended by eight ships of the line.
- The Ganges fired first among the merchant ships during the February 1804 encounter and suffered no casualties.
- The Ganges sank on a South Atlantic voyage after water rose through her hull despite surviving prior engagements.
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