Moctezuma (ship)

Career (unknown)
Name:	unknown
Launched:	unknown
Career (Spain)
Name:	Moctezuma
Fate:	captured by the Chilean Navy on 24. March 1819
Career (Chile)
Name:	Moctezuma
Commissioned:	24. March 1819
Fate:	given as gift to José de San Martín in 1822
Career (Perú)
Name:	Moctezuma
Fate:	captured by mistake by Thomas Cochrane in 1822
Career (Chile)
Name:	Moctezuma
Commissioned:	1822
Fate:	sold as merchant ship in 1828
General characteristics
Class and type:	Sloop
Displacement:	200 t
Propulsion:	sail

The Moctezuma (also Montezuma) was a 200 tons sloop of the First Chilean Navy Squadron of unknown provenience.

A ship under this name is mentioned as a British whaler captured in April by Captain David Porter on board of the USS Essex (1799) during his raid to the South Pacific Ocean in 1813.^[1] The Moctezuma, it is believed, was sold at Valpariaso.^[2]

The known story begin during the first blockade of Callao by the Chilean Squadron 1819. On 24. March 1819^[3] the warships under the command of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald captured the Moctezuma.^[4](p53) as she, with a US-flag, tried to broke the blockade and deliver weapons to the realists.^[5](p73)

She participated in the Capture of Valdivia and in the Liberating Expedition to Perú as Dispatch boat.^[3] She was left in Callao, but as Cochrane arrived (1822) to the port, he found the Moctezuma under the flag of the new Peruvian Navy. He seized the ship, again, and put the officers ashore. He didn't know that during his absence Bernardo O'Higgins had given the sloop to San Martin as a personal present.^[4](p162)

Later she was comissioned for use of Cochrane, now under the command of Lieutenat John Pascoe Grenfell and 18. January 1823 Cochrane's flag as Vice Admiral of Chile was lowered for the last time from the main mast of the Moctezuma.

She was sold as merchant ship in 1828.^[6]

See also

• USS Montezuma (1798)
• First Chilean Navy Squadron

References

1. ^ Historynet.com, War of 1812: Commodore David Porter and the Essex in the South Pacific The article was written by Tom DeForest and originally appeared in the June 1994 issue of Military History magazine.
2. ^ USS Essex engages HMS Phoebe 20 March 1814 . (retrieved on 22. January 2011), The page gives as Reference: "The Naval history of Great Britain: from the declaration of war by France in 1793 to the accession of George IV", William James, London, 1824.
3. ^ ^{a b} Gerardo Etcheverry Principales naves de guerra a vela hispanoamericanas., retrieved 11.01.2011
4. ^ ^{a b} Brian Vale, Cochrane in the Pacific, I.B. Tauris & Co ltd, 2008, ISBN 978 1 84511 446 6
5. ^ Carlos Lopez Urrutia, Historia de la Marina de Chile, Editorial Andrés Bello, 1969, http://books.google.com/books?id=IyV_C94lNRoC
6. ^ Website of the Chilean Navy, Moctezuma retrieved on 22. January 2011