The Siege of Charleston • 1780

From the desk of Huguenot Society researcher Cheves Leland:

There is a French saying, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more things change, the more they are the same.) Maybe not entirely applicable to the following stories of two British ships named the Richmond, but interesting nonetheless.

As noted in a previous blog, in late April 1680 a British frigate named the Richmond sailed across the bar and into Charles Towne harbor, bringing the first known group of French Protestant refugees to Carolina. Almost exactly 100 years later at the end of March, 1780 during the Revolutionary War, another British warship named the Richmond again crossed the bar, seeking entrance into the harbor. This time, however, there was no friendly welcome. Rebel forces, including descendants of that first group of Huguenot immigrants, attempted to prevent this second invasion of Charles Town. British troops attacking the city from the land side had no doubt encountered numerous Huguenot descendants when the Battle of Lenud’s Ferry was fought on 6 May. Those firing from Sullivan’s Island managed to damage the foretopmast of the Richmond, a frigate built by Buxton in Deptford, England, carrying 220 men and 42 guns of various sizes, but this time Charles Town fell to the British forces. A well-known rebel who escaped capture was Francis Marion, a descendant of Huguenot immigrants to Carolina. His great grandparents, Benjamin Marion and Judith Baluet, had arrived in Carolina from La Chaume en Poitou and the Ile d’Oleron in France in the 1690s. Fortunately for the rebel forces during the rest of the war, Marion had broken his leg while escaping from a house in the city and was not in the city.

Here are the deck plans for HMS Richmond, prior to suffering damage at Charleston.

Lower deck plan and orlop deck with fore & aft platforms for Richmond (1757); from Deptford harbor logs ca. 1771, via wikimedia commons