San Esteban Apedreado

Posted by Albert Parker on Sunday 12th of November 2023 01:26

An "error" (GOTCHA, SUCKA-AH!!) wiped out my post again and so I am just going to cut and paste the long version. with expansion of abbreviations.

1. San Esteban's initial armament, when she was built in 1726, was 40 guns: 18 × 12, 18 × 8, 4 × 4. This is the only armament in Spanish Warships in the Age of Sail , but the operational history there is very peculiar, ending in 1731 except for a puzzling note about her being broken up at Montevideo in 1745. Santiago Gómez Cañas, Historiales de los nvos de línea españoles, 2:48 (GC) cites Agustín Ramón Rodríguez-González and José L. Coello Lillo, La fragata en la Armada española, 500 años de historia (2003) for that armament, and Nemesio Mercapide Compains, Crónica de Guarnizo y su Real Astillero (1974, 1980) and Juan M. Castanedo Galán, Guarnizo, un astillero de la Corona (1993) for an armament of 40–50 guns.

2. By the beginning of 1734, San Esteban's armament had been increased to 46 heavier pieces (22 × 16, 24 × 8 [16-pounders were a pre-Bourbon caliber that the navy and American fortifications still had]). Gámez Cañas cites Archiva General de Simancas, SM, leg. 304, "Estado de los materiales y diversos géneros de pertrchos que necesitan los 10 navíos qu en ellos se expresan para sus carenas, aprestos y armamento," La Carraca, 12 Jan. 1734. Enrique García-Torralba Pérez cites the same document in /Fragatas de vela de la armada española/, p.131. Apparently he did not include this information in what he sent to the authors of Spanish Warships in the Age of Sail, or somehow it was dropped from that book.

3. By 1737, San Esteban's gun count, but not her broadside weight, had been increased again, to 22 × 12, 22 × 8, 6 × 4. In Spanish pounds, this is a change from 272 in 1734 to 232 in 1737. The commercial Spanish pound weighed only 460.09g or .943 of a Spanish artillery pound of 488.67g, so 16 of those pounds would have been only 15.09 Spanish artillery pounds, making the 1734 BS 262 Spanish naval artillery pounds. Gómez Cañas has this armament without a citation, but García-Torralba Pérez, Fragatas, 131, cites AGS, MA, leg. 660 for SE, Victoria Galera, and Hermiona; he also cites his Artillería naval, p.96. He didn't provide this to Spanish Warships either, or the info was somehow omitted.

4. The 1740 reversion to 40 guns is the result of an *error by British intelligence.* Richard Walter, comp., A Voyage Round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, by George Anson (London: Printed for the Author, 1748) [sometimes listed with Anson and Walter as "authors"], p. 20, included a list of Pizarro's squadron: Asia, 66 guns, 700 men; Guipuscoa, 74 guns, 700 men; Hermiona, 54 guns, 500 men; Esperanza, 50 guns, 450 men; St. Estevan, 40 guns, 350 men; a patache, 20 guns. This was 100% right about the names of Pizarro's ships but only 20% [bf in preceding list] right about their gun counts. The information about Pizarro's squadron furnished to Anson assigned Guipúzcoa's gun count to Asia, exaggerated gun counts for Guipúzcoa and Hermiona, and provided an obsolete gun count for San Esteban.

5. The Anson-Walter list has been used extensively in both English and Spanish histories right up to Rivas Ibáñez, "Mobilizing Resources for War," (2008), p. 205 (gun counts only, but exactly as A-W had them). Spanish historians that repeated the ship names, gun counts, and crew counts include Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía, Galeria biografica de los generales de la marina, 3:190 (1873) and Cesáreo Fernández Duro, Armada española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragón, 6:286n (1901), except that they had 64 guns for Asia. Herbert Richmond, The Navy in the War of 1739–48, vol.1, p.98, has the same gun counts as Pava y Pavía and Fenández Duro without the crew numbers (and might be Rivas Ibáñez's source). The ultimate derivation from Anson & Walter, not an independent account of SE offloading some guns at Santander, Santoña, or Ferrol in 1740, is demonstrated by the repetition also of Anson & Walter's erroneous gun counts for Guipúzcoa and Hermione.

Posted by Cy on Friday 10th of November 2023 10:02

Albert, look at the sources at the bottom of the page

Posted by Albert Parker on Friday 10th of November 2023 06:26

Enrique García-Torralba Pérez, /La fragatas de vela de la armada española 1600–1853/, says that in 1737 /San Esteban/'s armament was the same as /Hermiona/'s, viz., 22 × 12, 22 × 8, 6 × 4 = 50 guns. A total of 40 guns during the 1740–41 Pizarro expedition to head off Anson's intrusion into the Pacific is given by Santiago Gómez , /Historiales de los navíos de línea españoles (1700–1850), vol.2, p.53 (2021)and (probably his sources) by Cesáreo Fernández Duro, /Armada española desde la union de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragón/, vol.6, p.283n (1901) and Francisco de Paula Pavía y Pavía, /Galeria biograficade los generales de marina/, vol.3, p.190 (1873). But none of them say how the guns were distributed by caliber. What is the source for the 18-18-4 distribution? There doesn't seem to be a way to identify what "B075" is if that is all you have.