Westmorland (ship)

Francis Basset by Pompeo Batoni, 1778 - one of the paintings captured from the Westmorland (Prado)
History
Great Britain
Name:	Westmorland
Captured:	By French (1779); later recaptured
General characteristics
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	26 guns

The Westmorland or Westmoreland was a 26-gun British privateer frigate, operating in the Mediterranean Sea against French shipping in retaliation for France's opposition to Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War.

The most notable incident in the life of the Westmorland occurred shortly after she sailed for Britain from Livorno under Captain Michael Wallace late in 1778, carrying a large monetary payment for her inbound cargo of salt cod from Newfoundland (Livorno was a trade hub for this commodity), food goods, and 57 crates of artistic objects collected by Grand Tourists such as the Duke of Gloucester, Sir John Henderson and the Duke of Norfolk.

In January 1779, she was given chase by four French ships, comprising two men-of-war, the Caton (64) and the Destin (74), and two smaller vessels. Wallace attempted to outsail them but, outgunned as he was, soon felt he had little option but to allow the French to board his ship. She was then allowed by Spain (then friendly with France though not yet — in formal terms at least — at war with Britain) to continue to Málaga.

At Málaga her artistic contents were passed on from the French government to two trading companies with links to Ireland, despite Wallace's protests that the ship was full of "extremely precious goods" (the French had already seized her cash cargo), and the Spanish king was informed by his prime minister, the Count of Floridablanca, of the arrival of the art works. Upon Spain's formal declaration of war, king Charles III secretly bought the art from a syndicate of Madrid merchants for 360,000 silver reales (a discount on their original asking price of 600,000 gold doubloons, but still a considerable sum) and had it brought by cart to the capital. The portraits of Basset and Lord Lewisham, meanwhile, were acquired by the Spanish Prime Minister.