Henry Wilson (sailor)

Henry Wilson (1740–1810) was an English naval captain of the British East India Company, from Rotherhithe. He was in command of the British East India Company packet ship Antelope, when it shipwrecked off Ulong Island, near Koror Island in Palau in 1783, and the East Indiaman Warley at the Battle of Pulo Aura.

The context was the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War; normal routes from China westwards for British shipping were hampered by the Dutch East Indies. The Antelope had been returning from Macau by the "Eastern Passage", a route designed to avoid the south-west monsoon, but had strayed too far in the easterly direction.

On the north coast of New Guinea Wilson anchored in the vicinity of the Schouten Islands. After some dialogue over two days with Papuan inhabitants who came out to the ship, in which Wilson used vocabulary collected by Thomas Forrest at Dory Harbour, Wilson felt the numbers he faced were threatening. He used small arms to deter them, and the crew of the Antelope was attacked, an encounter in which the artist Arthur William Devis was injured. The wreck on Ulong followed.

Although Spain had claimed the islands previously, Wilson's crew made the first sustained contact, which was friendly. One of the crew of the Antelope knew Malay, allowing contact to be made with the ibedul on Koror, whom Wilson treated as a local king, somewhat misapprehending his status which was more like an elected official. While his men spent three months rebuilding the ship, Wilson entered an effective alliance with the ibedul in conflicts with Melekeok and others. One of the Antelope's guns proved decisive, shipped in a boat and discharged with powder alone.

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