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XIII. An Account of the sinking of the Dutch Frigate Ambuscade, 
of 32 Guns, near the Great Nore ; with the Mode used in 
recovering her. By Mr. Joseph Whidbey, Master Attendant in 
Sheerness Dock Tard. Communicated by the Right Hon . Sir 
Joseph Banks, Bart. K. B. P. R. S. 
Read April 28, 1803. 
At eight o’clock in the morning of the 9th day of July, 1801, 
the Dutch frigate Ambuscade left the moorings in Sheerness 
harbour, her fore-sail, top-sails, and top-gallant-sails being set, 
with the wind aft, blowing strong. In about thirty minutes, she 
went down by the head, near the Great Nore ; not giving the 
crew time to take in the sails, nor the pilot or officers more 
than four minutes notice, before she sunk ; by which unfortunate 
event, twenty-two of the crew were drowned. 
This extraordinary accident was owing to the hawse-holes 
being extremely large and low, the hawse-plugs not being in, 
and the holes being pressed under water by a crowd of sail on 
the ship, through which a sufficient body of water got in, un- 
perceived, to carry her to the bottom. 
The instant she sunk, she rolled over to windward across the 
tide, and lay on her beam ends; so that, at low water, the 
muzzles of the main deck guns were a little out of the water, 
and pointed to the zenith, with 32 feet of water round her. 
The first point I had to gain, was to get her upright. Before 
