Fox

Posted by Jon Miller on Sunday 31st of May 2026 18:16

Letters from Jamaica, dated in December 1799, state the arrival at Port Royal, of Lieutenant James Wooldridge, the officers and crew of his Majesty’s schooner Fox, of 18 eighteen pounders, and 75 men; she sailed from Jamaica in September last, with General Bowles, Chief of the Creek Indians; she was destined for the gulph of Mexico. The Fox touched at the Isle of Providence, for a pilot, and proceeded to her destination; on the 28th of September the master was sent in a boat to sound, about three leagues from the shore. The Fox struck on a sand bank, in seven feet water, and bilged immediately. The officers and crew remained all night in the rigging in this dreadful situation. In the morning the boats conveyed them, to a key, or coral and sand reef, where they remained thirty-two days, at a very small pittance of pork; water they dug for. In this terrible plight, the 33d day they saw a sail, and making signals of distress, the boats of the ship landed on the reef, brought off Lieutenant Wooldridge, General Bowles, and the ship’s company, all alive, though weak for want of nourishment. She proved to be a privateer called the Providence, and on her passage to Jamaica; she put the Fox’s officers and ship’s company on board the Thunderer, of 74 guns, and they were landed at Port-Royal the beginning of December. A court-martial was held on Lieutenant Wooldridge, his officers, and ship’s company, and after a minute investigation, they were all most honorably acquitted. [Hull Packet, 5 March 1800]