Frederick and Maria was launched in 1810 at Chittagong as the country ship Harriett Shakespeare, and quickly renamed. She visited Port Jackson in 1811, and otherwise traded in the Far East. She was reported to have disappeared in a hurricane in 1817. However, the report was in error and she continued to trade with India. Her last voyage appears to have occurred in 1819, though she is listed for some years after that.
Career
Frederick and Maria, Captain M'Neelance, arrived at Port Jackson on 19 June 1811 from Bengal, with merchandise. She left on 28 October.[4] She also brought some convicts from Bengal. The merchant and agent John C. Burton reported that the property he had shipped on her was worth 81,348 rupees 15 anna 2 pice (approx. £10,170).[5]
Captain A. Acres, master of Frederick and Maria, was one of seven captains of country ships that signed a letter to the British government urging it to do something about their detention at Chuanpee as a consequence of a dispute between the government at Canton and the British East India Company.[6]
Frederick and Mariawas reported to have foundered off Mauritius in March 1817 during a hurricane, with the loss of all aboard. She was on her way from Calcutta for London.[1]Lloyd's List reported that the ship Frederick Maria, Fish, master, and the ship Eliza, M'Lardie, master, from Calcutta and bound to Île de France with rice, "are supposed to have foundered at sea."[8]
However, Frederick and Maria apparently was not lost, and continued to trade with India. The Register of Shipping lists her among the ships licensed to trade with India, and having sailed in 1819 for Bengal with E. Harrison, master, and Richardson, owner.[9] She continued to be listed among the licensed ships until through 1822, but with no more recent voyage. She is last listed, with stale data, in 1825.[10]
Bladen, Frank Murcot, ed. (1901). Historical Records of New South Wales: Bligh and Macquarie. 1809, 1810, 1811. Vol. 7. New South Wales: C. Potter.
Hackman, Rowan (2001). Ships of the East India Company. Gravesend, Kent: World Ship Society. ISBN0-905617-96-7.
Historical Records of New South Wales: Series 1 - Governors' Dispatches to and from England, January, 1816 to December, 1818. (1917). Vol. 9.
Phipps, John (1840). A Collection of Papers Relative to Ship Building in India ...: Also a Register Comprehending All the Ships ... Built in India to the Present Time ... Scott.