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Auction: 1025 - The Turl Collection of Naval General Service Medals 1793 - 1840
Lot: 33

A Rare ´Confiance´ 1809 N.G.S. to Edward Bryant, Midshipman aged 16 years, Who Together With His Senior, Geroge Yeo, Aged 14 years, a Caretaker Crew of ´Twenty-Five Seaman and Twenty Negroes´ Got Confiance Underway From Lying At Anchor in Cayenne Harbour and Saw Off the French 40 Gun Frigate Topaz, Twice the Size of Confiance and Double Her Force Naval General Service 1793-1840, one clasp, Confiance 14 Jany. 1809 (E. Bryant.), suspension claw re-affixed, very fine Estimate £ 6,000-8,000 Edward Bryant served as Midshipman in H.M.S. Confiance 20 guns (Captain J.L. Yeo) as part of a small expedition to Brazil consisting of Yeo´s ship, two Portuguese ships (Voader and Infante), and a number of smaller vessels with 500 Portuguese troops; having captured the Oyapok area in French Guiana, Yeo and the Portuguese Commander (Lieutenant-Colonel Manoel Marques) led a combined force of Portuguese troops and 80 seaman and marines from the Confiance in the successful attack and capture of three forts on the island of Cayenne, the capital of the colony; after routing the French troops, an armistice was concluded and Cayenne was signed over to the British and Portuguese, 14.1.1809. The seamen and marines had landed on the 7th forcing the campaign within a week, ´even the Confiance, in the absence of her commander and full three-fourths of the crew, had good the fortune to accomplish, by her very appearance, what a ship of double her size and treble her force (her guns were only 18-pounder carronades), would have been proud of effecting by the fire of her artillery. For instance, on the 13th of January the French 40-gun frigate Topaze, Captain Lahalle, appeared in the offing, with a reinforcement for the garrison; but Mr. George Yeo, the Captain´s brother and a mere lad, although his whole numerical force consisted of another young midshipman, Edward Bryant, 25 English seamen, and 20 negroes, managed, by his skilful manoeuvres and the bold front he put on, to scare the French frigate from the coast.´ (Colonial Expeditions-South America, Capture of Cayenne, refers); George Yeo and Edward Bryant were in fact 14 and 16 years old at the time; Bryant was Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 1809, p131) and also honoured by the Prince Regent of Portugal, ´as a special and singular favour... grants to each of the midshipmen employed at Cayenne, to wit, Messrs. George Forder, David Irwin, William Moore, Edward Bryant, and George Yeo..... a sword, with the word ´Cayenne´, and suitable inscription engraved thereon´ Approximately 8 ´Confiance 14 Jany. 1809´ clasps issued. Provenance: Sotheby July 1981 Spink July 2000 On both of these occasions some details were at variance with the original Admiralty Claimant´s List (ADM 171.2.122)

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£8,500