The Peru Gazette

The HMS Confiance was a 36-gun frigate that served in the Royal Navy during the Battle Lake Champlain on September 11, 1814. It served as Captain George Downie’s flagship during the battle.

She was surrendered to the Americans following a battle that lased about two and a half hours. It was the Confiance’s last engagement because she was sailed to Whitehall at the southern end of Lake Champlain as part of the U.S. Navy and placed in reserve.

In 1820, the Confiance was formally abandoned and, after being partially salvaged, was allowed to sink at her moorings. Later, the hulk was deemed to be a danger to navigation, and she was destroyed by dynamite during dredging operations in 1873.

Captain Downie was crushed by a cannon in the battle and was later buried in the Riverside Cemetery at 36 years of age. He was born in Scotland and had joined the British Navy when he was 12 years old, so had more than twenty years of service under his belt before the battle.

In 1813, he was promoted to captain of the Montreal on Lake Ontario. Then, in August 1814, he was appointed to be captain of the Confiance. He took command of her on August 3rd at Ile aux Noix a few miles east of Lacolle, PQ, in the Richelieu River, and knew no one on board except his first lieutenant. There were 270 sailors and 86 marines on board and the rest were volunteers from ports in Quebec, some of whom where fresh out of prison – not the ideal mixture for a successful battle. The cannon which crushed Downie is in front of Macdonough Hall at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

On September 11, 1998, the anchor of the Confiance was raised, and after some conservation work at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, found a home at the City Hall in Plattsburgh.

The site of the Battle of Lake Champlain was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.