Du Teillay (1744 ship)


Du Teillay was a French privateer ship, commissioned as such in Nantes in 1744 by Antoine Walsh, an Irish-born shipowner and slave trader operating in France. She played a central role in the Jacobite rising of 1745, ferrying Charles Edward Stuart to Ardmolich with supplies and funds to support his cause.

Career

She saw action on the 9 July 1745, when she accompanied by the ship ‘Elizabeth’ she was fired upon by HMS Lion. The Du Teillay at the time was carrying Charles to Scotland. Prince Charles had boarded the French ship on 2 July 1745 and left Saint-Nazaire on the 3 July 1745 bound for Ardmolich. They were joined by a French escort ship the ‘Elizabeth’ on the island of Belle-Ile of the south-west coast of Brittany, but not until the 13 July 1745. The ships departed from Belle-Ile on the 15 July 1745. A few days later, they were intercepted by the ‘Lion’, commanded by Captain Piercy Brett off the coast of Cornwall. A close action began at 17.00 between the ‘Lion’ and ‘Elizabeth’, with the ‘Du Teillay’ attacking the ‘Lion’ several times and, at 18.00, the ‘Lion’s’ mizzen topmast came down. By 20.00, The ‘Lion’ with her mizzen top and topmast shot away and hanging over the side was still in close action with the ‘Elizabeth’. The ‘Du Teillay’ shielded by the Elizabeth continued firing at the ‘Lion’ who returned fire with her stern guns. The ‘Lion’ continued firing at the ‘Elizabeth’ until the latter broke free at 22.00 to join the ‘Du Teillay’; by this time the ‘Lion’ was too damaged to follow, with 52 of her men were dead and about 110 wounded. The ‘Elizabeth’ had lost about 57 men with 175 wounded with her commander, Captain Dau, among the dead, obliging her to give up and return to France, leaving the Du Teillay to proceed alone.
On 23 July 1745 i.e. 2nd of August 1745, the 'Du Teillay' arrived at Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides with his 'seven men of Moidart', before sailing onto Loch nan Uamh where Charles disembarked two days later, the ship then returning to Brittany.

Fate