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Red Dragon (1595)

Reddragonship.jpg
Red Dragon, Captain Lancaster, in the Strait of Malacca, Anno 1602.
History
English Ensign East India Company EnsignEngland
Name:
  • Scourge of Malice (1595–1600)
  • Red Dragon (1601–unknown)
Owner: Earl of Cumberland (1595–1600)
Operator: East India Company (1601–1619)
Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Launched: 1595
Honours and
awards:
Fate: Sunk by Dutch fleet, 1619
General characteristics
Type: Armed ship
Tons burthen: 600 – 900 , or 960 (bm)
Propulsion: Sails
Armament:

Scourge of Malice or Malice Scourge or Mare Scourge was a 38-gun ship ordered by George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. She was built and launched at Deptford Dockyard in 1595. The Earl used her as his flagship during raids on the Spanish Main, where she provided additional force to support his fleet. She was later renamed Red Dragon and used by the East India Company during at least five voyages to the East Indies. The first recorded performance of the play Hamlet took place on the ship in 1607, as it was anchored off the coast of Sierra Leone.

In the 1590s, the Earl of Cumberland's passion for nautical adventure was at its peak. He lacked a vessel able to support his hired fleet; the only option he had to get a sufficiently armed vessel was to borrow from the Queen, something which would give her significant control over his actions. As a result, he declared that he would have his own ship built, 'the best and largest ship that had been built by any English subject.' The ship is variously recorded as being between 600 and 900tons and was named by Queen Elizabeth I as Scourge of Malice.

Having had Scourge of Malice built, the Earl then departed in his new ship, along with three smaller vessels, on another expedition to raid the Spanish Main. However, the fleet had only travelled as far as Plymouth when he was recalled to London by the Queen. He returned, leaving the remainder of the small fleet to continue without him. On their return, he travelled out with them again; however on this voyage, Scourge of Malice was badly damaged in a violent storm only forty leagues from England, her mainmast being damaged, and he was once more forced to return to seek repairs.

With the repairs completed, the Earl set sail once again on 6 March 1598, Scourge of Malice now the flagship of a fleet numbering twenty vessels. After Sir Francis Drake's defeat at San Juan in 1595, the Earl of Cumberland was under orders to capture Brazil from the Spanish. Following Drake's attack, the fort at San Juan was left with 200 men and 150 volunteers, bolstered by a further 200 men when reinforcements arrived from Spain. By the time the Earl's fleet appeared off the coast of the islands on 16 June 1598, many of the Spanish soldiers had lost their discipline and turned to theft due to dysentery and the lack of food. Two initial attacks by the English were fruitless, costing them lives without any gain; the Earl of Cumberland himself almost drowning trying to cross the San Antonio channel. Knowing that the Spanish were short of supplies, the English preferred to lay siege to the castle of El Morro rather than destroy it, and on 29 June allowed the Spanish commander and troops to leave. During the attack on the town, the English had only lost 200 men, but over the next two months they lost 400 to an epidemic of dysentery, and after occupying the island for only 65 days, Cumberland abandoned the fort. Before they left, the English sacked the town, burning houses to the ground and stealing whatever caught their eye; items that included the cathedral bells and 2,000 slaves.


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