Michael Lewis in The Navy in Transition 1814-1864: A social history (1965), p.255, writes : ‘As late as 1820 … the Captain of the Harlequin, at his own expense, put his gig’s crew into a particoloured representation of
the ship’s name’.
The Harlequin in service that year was the brig sloop launched in 1813 and sold in 1829. Commander C.N. Robinson, writing in The
Mariner’s Mirror Vol.3 No.6 (June 1913) p.176, says that : ‘Commander Wilmot, of
the Harlequin, in 1853, dressed his gig’s crew as Harlequins …’
Eardley-Wilmot commanded the Harlequin brig sloop launched in 1836. To which of these two ships does this story apply?
Lawrie Phillips
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