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The Royal Society: Science in the Making

Unpublished paper, 'Narrative of the proceedings of Commander Thomas Dickinson of His Majesty's sloop Lightning, while employed in the enterprise for the recovery of the public stores and other property sunk in His Majesty's late frigate "Thetis", on the S W side of the island of Cape Frio [Cabo Frio]' by Thos [Thomas] Dickinson

Reference number: AP/18/4

Date: 1834

Description

Dickinson shares an account of the sinking of HMS Thetis off the south west coast of Cabo Frio [Brazil]. He estimates that the ship had a freight of around $810,000 onboard at the time of sinking, and that all freight was initially believed to have been lost. Dickison describes his process of attempting to recover the sunken freight. Followed by a letter from Dickinson to the Royal Society defending his account of the recovery of the freight, featuring extracts of letters from Dickinson to J F F [John Frederick Fitzgerald] De Roos of His Majesty's brig Algerine, who was also involved in the recovery.

Subject: Engineering

Received 13 March 1834. Communicated by P M [Peter Mark] Roget and J G [John George] Children.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 3 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'Narrative of the proceedings of Commander Thomas Dickinson, of His Majesty's sloop lightning, while employed in the enterprise for the recovery of the public stores and other property sunk in His Majesty's late frigate thetis, on the south-west side of the Island of Cape Frio'.

Reference number
AP/18/4
Earliest possible date
1834
Physical description
Ink on paper
Page extent
26 pages
Format
Manuscript

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Citation

Unpublished paper, 'Narrative of the proceedings of Commander Thomas Dickinson of His Majesty's sloop Lightning, while employed in the enterprise for the recovery of the public stores and other property sunk in His Majesty's late frigate "Thetis", on the S W side of the island of Cape Frio [Cabo Frio]' by Thos [Thomas] Dickinson, 1834, AP/18/4, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_18_4/unpublished-paper-narrative-of-the-proceedings-of-commander-thomas-dickinson-of-his-majestys-sloop-lightning-while-employed-in-the-enterprise-for-the-recovery-of-the-public-stores-and-other-property-sunk-in-his-majestys-late-frigate-thetis-on-the-s-w-side-of-the-island-of-cape-frio-cabo-frio-by-thos-thomas-dickinson, accessed on 06 December 2024

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  • Archived Papers

    Dates: 1768-1989

    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

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