On this day – December 22nd

HMS Minotaur Wrecked

HMS Minotaur was a 74-gun frigate with a proud record. Since the launch at Woolwich in 1793 Minotaur had fought with distinction at the Battle of the Nile, the siege of Genoa, the Aboukir Bay landings, Trafalgar and Copenhagen. Somewhat ironically it was not enemy action that sank her, but navigational error.

Sailing home from Gothenburg in appalling weather the ship ran aground on a bank off the Frisian island of Texel in the evening of December 22 1810. Soon rolling on her side, the ship was dismasted and helpless. Even so, more than 100 of her crew managed to take to the boats while they could. These men made the shore rapidly, and informed the Dutch authorities of Minotaur's predicament, requesting immediate assistance for the crewmen left aboard.

Inexplicably, and against all the lore of the sea, the Dutch forces refused to act that night.

By the following morning Minotaur had been pounded to oblivion; only four further survivors were found washed ashore clinging to wreckage. The exact death toll is unclear, though the generally accepted figure is 480.

The Dutch coast being at that time part of the "enemy" French Empire, the survivors then spent the next three years or so in prison as prisoners-of-war.

Who painted the famous picture of the event shown here?

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