Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas (Part I)

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 1 clasp, Lion 15 July 1798 (Robert Murry.) nearly extremely fine £5,000-£7,000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Naval Medals from the Collection of the Late Jason Pilalas.

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Collection

Murray Collection 1925; and Loxley Collection, Glendining’s, October 1949; Seaby, February 1950; Glendining’s, December 1951 and May 1965.

Robert Murry, a unique name on the rolls, is confirmed on the roll as an Ordinary Seaman aboard the Lion for the action of 15 July 1798. 23 clasps were issued for this action.

On 15 July 1798, the Lion 64-guns, Captain Manley Dixon, about 30 leagues off Carthagena, met with four Spanish frigates - one of them, the Santa Dorotea 42-guns, having lost her fore-topmast. The Spanish ships formed in line of battle but the Lion, having the weather gage, bore down and succeeded in cutting off the Santa Dorotea, left astern by her consorts. This ship, though her topmast was gone, sailed nearly as well as the Lion, and the other three frigates tacked and made three attempts to support her, but each time receiving a broadside from Captain Dixon, at length hauled off, and stood away to the north west. The Lion then got alongside the Santa Dorotea and engaged her yard-arm to yard-arm, shooting away her mizzen mast and damaging her main mast and rudder, till seeing herself abandoned by her comrades, and having 20 of her crew killed and 32 wounded, she struck her colours. The Lion who was 50 men short of her complement, had a midshipman and one man wounded. The Santa Dorotea was afterwards, under the same name, added to the British Navy as a 36-gun frigate.